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I • 







JacquettCj 
A Sorority Girl 









Little by little the story of the evening came out 


Jacquette 

A Sorority Girl 


BY 

GRACE ETHELWYN CODY 

'f 


ILLUSTRATED BY CHARLES JOHNSON POST 



NEW YORK 

DUFFIELD Sr COMPANY 

1908 


i 


rUBRARV of OONaHESS 
Two Copies KeceivoG 

I JAN 28 1908 

__OoMyni:iM ci>try 

ija^ 2U, 

I classic XXc. Nu. 

I COPY B. 


Copyright, 1908 
By DUFFIELD & COMPANY 


Published 1908 


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<v 
c 
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THE PREMIER PRESS 
NEW YORK 


To 

My Mother 


i 





CONTENTS 


PAGE 

L JaCQUETTE . r.- 1 

II. Mademoiselle . . 

III. Tia .... 44 

IV. Bobs . . . .68 

V. The Game ... 87 

VI. The Mass-meeting . .109 

VIL The “Fool-Killer” . 12 S 

VIII. February Rushing . .148 

IX. Jacquette’s Rebellion . 170 

X. Commencement . . 189 

XL Compromise . . . S08 

XII. The Real Queen . . 230 

XIII. Christmas . . . 263 


I 


Jacquette, 

A Sorority Girl 









Chapter i 


jACQTTETTE 

I T was nine o’clock in the evening when 
a heavy train rolled into the Union 
Station of a great western city. 
[Among the passengers to alight was a fair- 
haired girl who glanced timidly about the 
big, cavernous station before falling in 
with the procession of travellers that had 
begun to move toward the waiting-room. 
Suddenly, one face shone clearly from 
among the indiscriminate mass of faces 
outside the iron gates, and she gave a glad 
little cry, as a tall boy stepped forward, 
caught her suitcase from her, and grasped 
her hand. 

‘‘ J acquette, isn’t it ? ” he exclaimed, his 
dark eyes shining with welcome. “ I’d 
know you anywhere from your pictures.” 
1 


JacquettCy a Sorority Girl 

“ But I shouldn’t know you ! ” she an- 
swered. “ I’d no idea you were so big and 
— and grand ! ” she finished, roguishly. 

‘‘ As for that, I am rather grand, to- 
night,” he laughed, stealing admiring 
glances at her as he led the way through 
the crowded station to the street. “ I’m 
down here in the governor’s new auto to 
meet a long-lost country cousin, and I find 
a fairy princess, instead. What more 
could a fellow ask.^^ ” 

“Not an automobile! Truly.? I’ve 
never been in one, yet.” 

“ Oh, well, you’ll do a lot of things in 
Channing that you never did in Brookdale. 
Here’s the machine. Just step in and be 
comfortable while I look after your bag- 
gage.” 

He gave an order to the respectful 
chauflPeur and disappeared into the station, 
while Jacquette Willard looked after him, 
feeling that she had suddenly entered a new 
world. She sat up very straight, brushing 
2 


Jacquette 


a bit of lint from the jacket of her wine- 
coloured travelling-gown, and, more than 
once, she patted the sunny mist of hair 
about her face, and put both hands to the 
jaunty hat, to make sure that it was poised 
exactly as it should be. In a few minutes 
her tall cousin came back and seated him- 
self beside her, and then they went spin- 
ning along the brilliantly lighted streets 
toward her uncle’s home. 

“ It seems like a fairy story to me, 
Quis,” she said, looking up at him with a 
shy smile. 

“ Didn’t I tell you you were the prin- 
cess ? ” Marquis answered gaily. “ Do 
you know ? — there’s a pink rose in our con- 
servatory that looks just like you, only it 
lacks the eyes — poor rose ! Your pictures 
showed your hair was curly, but they didn’t 
tell the gold colour of it, and those stun- 
ning braids didn’t show, either. Wonder 
if the girls will make you put up your 
hair.? ” 


3 


Jacquette, a Sorority Girl 
“ What girls?” 

Oh, the bunch I’ll show you, to-mor- 
row morning. Nicest girls in Marston 
High.’’ 

“ High school, do you mean ? ” 

“ Yes ; we never stop to put on the 
school, though. Everybody knows Mars- 
ton. It’s famous all through the west for 
its football team. I’m mighty glad you 
came while I’m a senior here, instead of 
waiting till next year when I’ll be off at 
college. I can give you no end of pointers. 
By the way, I liked it just now, when you 
said ‘ Quis.’ I suppose you know about 
your mother and my father getting our 
Frenchy sounding names out of the same 
old novel? Funny, wasn’t it? I have to 
answer to ‘ Markee ’ about half the time. 
The fellows do it to guy me. I wonder 
what you’d think if I should call you 
‘Jack’?” 

“ I’d like it,” she agreed, promptly. “ I 
never had a nickname.” 


4 


Jacquette 


“ All right, that’s settled. Don’t you 
think it’s queer we feel so well acquainted, 
just from the letters we’ve written? Do 
you realise that it’s twelve years since I 
even saw you? We lived abroad ten whole 
years, you know. Mother was saying, last 
night, that I’d spent two years more of 
my life in Europe than in this country, so 
far. I’m a pretty good American, though, 
for all that. The last two years here in 
Channing seem worth more than the whole 
ten on the other side. My father feels the 
same way, too, and he’s mighty happy to 
think that you and Aunt Sula and grand- 
father are coming to live so near us.” 

And perhaps we’re not happy about it 
too ! You ought to hear the plans Aunt 
Sula and I have made for this winter. 
We’re going to make the most of the 
chance to hear good music, and see all the 
exhibitions at the Art Institute, for one 
thing.” 

“ Whew ! How cultured we are ! ” 


5 


Jacquette, a Sorority Girl 

“We aren’t, yet, but wait!” Jacquette 
laughed. Then she added, seriously, “ Our 
plans aren’t all selfish, though. We’re 
hoping we can interest grandfather in 
some of the new things, and make him hap- 
pier. He has been so lonely since grand- 
mother died, Quis.” 

“ I suppose he has. How soon are they 
coming.^ ” 

“ Oh, it will be six weeks or two months 
before Aunt Sula can settle up things and 
leave Brookdale. I ought to be there to 
help her, but she was so anxious to have me 
begin school the first day that she made me 
come.” 

“ Then you’re going to stay at our 
house six weeks or more. That’s great. 
Perhaps you’ll make up your mind to live 
with us all the time after this.” 

“ Aunt Sula wouldn’t hear of that,” 
Jacquette said, smiling. “ She thinks I 
belong to her as much as if I were her very 
own daughter. I guess I do, too. She’s 
6 


Jacquette 


taken care of me ever since I was three 
years old, you know.” 

“ Three ! ” Marquis repeated, in a soft- 
ened tone. “ Were you that little when 
your father and mother died. Jack.? ” 

She nodded, a wistful look creeping into 
the hazel eyes, and they were both silent 
for a little. The automobile had turned 
on to a fashionable boulevard, and was 
skimming along like the wind. Presently 
a grey stone house loomed before them. 

“ Here we are ! ” cried Marquis — and, 
a minute later. Uncle Mac and Aunt 
Fanny were welcoming the Brookdale 
niece to their city home. 

Aunt Fanny was tall and distinguished 
looking. Quis was like her ; Jacquette saw 
that at a glance. Uncle Mac was stout 
and blue-eyed — and dear and kind. 

After the first greetings he held his 
niece off at arm’s length, and looked deep 
into her eyes. 

“ Your mother’s own girl,” he said, 

7 


Jacquette, a Sorority Girl 

with a mist in his voice. “ Fanny, let’s 
keep her for ours after this.” 

“ At any rate, we shall be ver}^ glad to 
keep her for ours until Father Granville 
and Sula come, Malcolm,” Aunt Fanny 
answered in even tones, and Jacquette, 
glancing shyly up at the white profile of 
her statuesque, dark-haired aunt, felt, sud- 
denly, that she knew who ruled her uncle’s 
home. 

Mrs. Malcolm Granville was a woman 
who prided herself on her practical com- 
mon sense, and, though she was very will- 
ing to receive Jacquette into her luxurious 
home for a visit, she had no intention of 
allowing her husband to put any foolish 
ideas, even for a minute, into the mind of 
his niece. As she reasoned, Jacquette, with 
the modest inheritance left to her by her 
father, was very suitably placed in the un- 
pretentious home of her grandfather and 
unmarried aunt, and there was no good 
reason for saying or doing anything which 
8 


Jacquette 

might cause her to feel discontented with 
this arrangement. 

As a matter of fact, there was not the 
slightest danger. Jacquette was too de- 
votedly attached to her adopted mother to 
consider, for a moment, the thought of 
leaving her, and she felt an impulse to tell 
Aunt Fanny so on the spot, but she con- 
trolled it, and, after a few days, she 
learned, as people always did, to make 
allowances for Aunt Fanny’s “ way,” and 
to appreciate her kindness, in spite of it. 

‘‘ Now I’m going to carry this girl 
straight off to bed,” Aunt Fanny declared, 
presently, after Jacquette, relieved of her 
wraps and seated in a rocker before the 
fireplace in the library, had been served 
with a dainty tray of refreshments. “ You 
see she can’t eat a mouthful, even though 
she confesses to not having taken dinner 
on the train. I believe she has swallowed 
three sips of milk and one nibble of that 
roll, altogether. She’s tired and excited, 
9 


Jacquette, a Sorority Girl 

and the longer she stays here answering 
your questions, Malcolm, the more tired 
she’ll be.” 

“ Oh, mother, it’s disgracefully early!” 
Marquis protested, but Uncle Malcolm, 
leaning back in his big leather chair, smiled 
good-naturedly. 

“ Guess you’re right, Fanny,” he agreed. 

If she’s going to begin school to-morrow 
morning, the sooner those pretty eyes are 
shut, the better.” 

“ There won’t be any school-work to 
speak of, the first day — ^nothing but fun — 
and I had forty things more to say to her,” 
Marquis was still grumbling as he rose to 
say good-night, but his mother’s word was 
law, and even Marquis grudgingly ad- 
mitted her wisdom, next morning, when he 
saw the bright, rosy girl that emerged 
from the good night’s rest. As he started 
for school with Jacquette, after breakfast, 
he turned and looked her over with a smile 
of satisfaction. 


10 


Jacquette 


“Well, what is it? Country cousin?” 
she asked him, saucily. 

“ Not much! I meant ‘ fairy princess’ 
when I said it. I was just thinking that 
if your dress were an inch or two longer, 
you’d look precious little like a freshy.” 

“ There’s a double hem in all of theiti, 
to let out if I need to,” Jacquette confided 
to him, “ but Aunt Sula thought they were 
long enough for fifteen.” 

“ Oh, well, the Sigma Pi girls will post 
you on all those matters.” 

“ The Sigma what ? ” 

“ That’s your sorority — Sigma Pi Ep- 
silon. I’ve arranged with the girls to rush 
you, first thing, and they’re sure to bid 
you in a few days.” 

“ To bid me? ” 

“ I’ll bet you don’t know what a sorority 
is! Oh, Brookdale, Brookdale! Think of 
a fairy princess buried in Brookdale ! 
Why, every high school worthy of the 
name, nowadays, has its Greek-letter so- 
il 


Jacquette, a Sorority Girl 

cieties, and at Marston, we have more fra- 
ternities and sororities than I could tell 
you about in an hour. The only ones 
worth mentioning, though, are the ones 
with national charters. The little local 
ones are punk. The people that can’t 
make the nationals, go into them. But it 
goes without saying that the sorority I’m 
going to get you into is the most exclusive 
set in the school. Wait till you see the 
girls.” 

“ Why, Quis, I do know about secret 
societies in schools. I’ve read a lot about 
the teachers opposing them.” 

“ Yes, I suppose you have — but they 
haven’t any right to do it. Is it their 
business to forbid our joining a club, pro- 
vided our parents are willing As for the 
Channing Board of Education, I guess 
we’ve hushed it up for one while. It made 
a rule, last year, shutting off fraternity 
and sorority members from a lot of high 
school privileges — trying to freeze out 


12 


Jacquette 


secret societies that way, you see — and we 
just took up a collection and hired a first- 
class lawyer and got an injunction against 
their enforcing that rule. They haven’t 
any legal right to do such a thing.” 

Jacquette listened with a growing sense 
of her own lack of information. “ But 
don’t you think there’s anything, then, in 
all this fuss about fraternities making class 
distinctions in school ? ” she asked cau- 
tiously. 

“Not a thing! I’ll tell you how it is: 
All the fellows that are really worth any- 
thing get into some fraternity or other — 
and the same with the girls.” 

They turned a corner and came within 
sight of Marston High School. It was a 
large grey stone building, rising abruptly 
from the street and separated from it only 
by two ralled-in grass plots, one on each 
side of the walk leading to the main en- 
trance. A few scrub oaks, straggling 
relics of the old forest which had once 


13 


Jacquette, a Sorority Girl 


flourished where the hurrying, striving city 
now stood, shaded the windows at the 
south, but, except for these, everything 
was bare — as different as possible from the 
pleasant grounds surrounding the little 
Brookdale school. 

“ Oh, are we here.? ” Jacquette cried. 

I wanted to ask you about planning my 
course, Quis.” 

“ Lots of time for that,” he told her. 

You won’t do a thing but be rushed, 
to-day.” 

“And just what is being ‘rushed,’ 
please.? ” 

“ Here’s somebody that will show you,” 
he answered, coming to a sudden stop on 
the sidewalk in front of the school build- 
ing, where a group of girls were talking 
together. 

They greeted Marquis gaily, and Jac- 
quette’s name had hardly been pronounced 
before they came fluttering about her like 
butterflies. After a minute. Marquis 
14 


Jacquette 

laughingly withdrew, promising to look 
her up later. 

Jacquette had never experienced any- 
thing like this. She was flattered and 
petted, her “ beautiful braids ” envied, her 
“ lovely colour ” raved over, while she was 
being presented to this and that girl, and 
yielded reluctantly by one to the other, 
until she had met about twenty. 

There the introductions stopped. Plenty 
of other girls and boys were standing 
about, or passing in and out of the school 
building, but it was evident that she was 
to meet no one outside of this particular 
set, to-day. She was satisfied, though, for 
she had begun to believe what Marquis had 
said about these being the nicest girls in 
Marston High. 

As she stood there in the warm Septem- 
ber sunshine, she found herself taking 
notes of the silk and muslin gowns worn 
by these new friends, and of the elaborate 
styles of hair-dressing. One richly-dressed 
15 


JacquettCy a Sorority Girl 

girl, who had been introduced as Blanche 
Gross, was describing a forty-dollar hat 
that she had bought “ just to wear in the 
house, at teas and receptions.” Jacquette, 
fresh from Brookdale, wondered what 
Aunt Sula would say to that. She wished 
Quis had told her that hats were not worn 
outdoors in Channing. Not one of the 
girls had any covering on her head. 

The chatter about her went on merrily. 
Now and then a new girl was brought into 
the charmed circle, and passed around, just 
as Jacquette had been, but no one seemed 
to think of going into school. Jacquette 
did not quite understand ; she was only sure 
that it was all fascinating, and that she 
was glad to be a part of it. 

“ Don’t we go in to see about our classes, 
pretty soon ^ ” she asked, presently, of 
Louise Markham, a jolly, stylish-looking 
senior in a white linen suit, who seemed to 
have taken her especially under her wing. 

‘‘ Oh, no ! ” — Etta Brainerd, the talka- 

16 


Jacquette 

tive girl of the crowd spoke before Louise 
could answer — Sorority girls never 
register until second day.” 

“ But we may have to reform our ways 
in that respect, girls,” laughed Louise. 
“ Did you know the Board of Education 
took off five teachers from Marston fac- 
ulty, last year, because the enrollment of 
pupils on the first day was only a thou- 
sand? Next day, you know, after the rest 
of us had registered, there were nearly fif- 
teen hundred, and the teachers didn’t like 
it a bit. It made their work so much 
harder.” 

“ Oh, they always fuss about some- 
thing,” said Etta, carelessly. “We have 
to take care of the interests of our so- 
rority, first day. Guess we aren’t going to 
let the Kappa Belts run off with the best 
girls, while we’re registering ! ” 

Etta was the tallest girl in the group. 
Her brown hair was drawn to the top of 
her head in a fluffy knot, and her skirts 
17 


Jacquette, a Sorority Girl 

almost touched the ground. As she spoke, 
she was readjusting the sorority pin on 
the front of her white lace waist. “ It has 
to be exactly over the heart,” she ex- 
plained, with a smile, as she saw Jacquette 
watching her. 

“We’re going to have a spread after 
a while, and we want you to come,” Louise 
murmured to Jacquette. “ That’s what 
‘ rushing ’ means. Quis said I should tell 
you. We pick out the girls we think we 
may want, and give them a good time — 
spreads and so on — and then, if we find 
they’re all right, we bid them Sigma Pi — 
ask them to join, you know.” 

But while Louise was speaking, Jac- 
quette had suddenly recognised a girl who 
had spent the summer with an aunt in 
Brookdale, a few years earlier. 

“ Margaret Howland ! ” she cried, dart- 
ing forward and catching her by the arm. 

“ Jacquette Willard ! Where did you 
drop down from? ” 


18 


Jacquette 


Jacquette wondered, as she explained, at 
the curious expression which crossed Mar- 
garet’s face. “ I never dreamed you went 
to this school,” Jacquette finished. “ I was 
going to look you up the first chance I 
had, but now we’ll see each other every 
day. Isn’t it splendid? ” 

“ Yes, I’m awfully glad to see you, 

but ” Margaret hesitated. 

“ ‘ But,’ you’re so big you can’t play 
with a little f reshy? ” 

“ No, indeed ! But I’m afraid, if Quis 

Granville is your cousin ” 

“Jack!” a surprised voice interrupted, 
and, turning, Jacquette found Quis look- 
ing down at her in unmistakable disap- 
proval. “ Good morning. Miss Howland,” 
he added, lifting his cap to Margaret. 
“ Excuse my cousin, will you? Some of 
the girls want her.” 

It was done in a twinkling. Margaret 
was swallowed up in the bevy of girls who 
had gathered about while she talked with 

19 


Jacquette, a Sorority Girl 

Jacquette, and Marquis carried off his 
cousin in gleeful triumph. 

“ What in the world ! ” he began, as soon 
as they were out of earshot. “ How did 
she ever get you.? ” 

“Get me.? What do you mean.?” Jac- 
quette protested. “ That’s Margaret How- 
land — a darling girl I knew in Brookdale, 
three years ago.” 

“ The mischief you did ! She’s one of 
the strongest workers in Kappa Delta, and 
you mustn’t have a thing to do with her 
at this stage of the game, or you’ll lose all 
your chances with the Sigma Pi girls. 
Now, mind. Jack, you’re new here. I know 
the ground and you won’t be sorry if you 
take my advice. My frat is Beta Sigma, 
the best in school — hardest to get into, 
finest frat house, highest dues, and all that. 
The only sorority that ranks with it is 
Sigma Pi Epsilon. I want you to have the 
best. Understand.? ” And, as he ended, 
he handed her over to Louise Markham, 
20 


Jacquette 


whose laugh had rippled out gaily when 
she saw them coming. 

“ I’ll not let her get away again,” she 
told Marquis, her dark eyes twinkling as 
she put one arm around Jacquette. “We 
love her too much, already, to trust her 
in the enemy’s camp.” 

“ Indeed we do ! ” chorussed half a dozen 
girls, gathering about, and, before she 
realised what was happening, Jacqhette 
had been bewitched into forgetting all 
about Margaret. 

The morning passed, and when the noon 
hour came, the girls adjourned to the 
Sigma Pi spread. It was given at Etta 
Brainerd’s house, and Jacquette found 
that it meant sandwiches and salads, hot 
chocolate, olives, cake, ice-cream and 
candy, all served picnic fashion, with so- 
rority songs, and laughter and chatter. 
When the party dispersed, late in the after- 
noon, some one whispered to Jacquette 
that she was to stay, and, as soon as the 
21 


Jacquette, a Sorority Girl 

other guests had gone, the Sigma Pi girls 
gathered about and told her that they had 
decided to ask her to join their sorority. 

Then Louise Markham, who had com- 
pletely won Jacquette’s heart, walked home 
with her to tell Quis what a success she 
had been with the girls, and to charge him 
that he must help her with an important 
letter which she was to write to her Aunt 
Sula that evening. 

Accordingly, after dinner, Marquis and 
Jacquette retired to the library for con- 
sultation. 

Jacquette took up a pen. “ Tia Mia,” 
were the first words she wrote. 

“ What’s that ? ” Quis demanded, look- 
ing over her shoulder. 

“ Tee-ah mee-ah,” pronounced Jac- 
quette. ‘‘ It’s Spanish for ‘ my aunt.’ We 
found it in a book, and I thought it was 
cunning ; so ‘ Tia ’ has been my pet name 
for Aunt Sula ever since.” 

“Oh! Well, go on,” Quis consented, 
22 


Jacquette 

and after much re-writing, this was the 
letter they sent: 

“ Tia Mia, 

“ The first day at school has been simply 
glorious and now I have a great favour 
to ask. DonH refuse it! I have been 
asked to join the nicest girls’ club in Mars- 
ton High School. May I do it? Of 
course I’d rather wait till you are here 
and could know the girls, too, but Quis 
says I ought to accept when I’m asked, 
as it’s a great compliment, and they may 
never invite me again. It’s called a so- 
rority — a sisterhood, you know — and it 
stands for the highest ideals in scholarship 
and everything else. 

“ Darling, please, please don’t make me 
lose this chance of being closely associated 
with the very best girls, just because you’re 
not here to judge for yourself. Trust 
me. 

“ I don’t know what the dues will be, but 


23 


Jacquette, a Sorority Girl 


not large, Quis thinks, and I could pay 
them out of the money set aside for my 
education. It’s really a part of my high 
school education, they seem to think, here. 

“ Please say yes, dearest, and by return 
mail. 

“ Always the same love, 

“ Your Girl.” 


24; 


CHAPTER II 


MADEMOISELLE 

N ext morning dawned bright and 
clear — another day like midsum- 
mer — and, when Jacquette began 
to dress, a remark that Louise had made 
on the way home from the spread the night 
before, came into her mind. 

“ This is your travelling suit, isn’t it ? ” 
Louise had said. “ It’s so appropriate — 
plain and dark! I love plain things for 
travelling, don’t you ? ” 

With this in her thoughts, Jacquette 
discarded the simple shirt-waist suit she 
had intended to wear, and took out, in- 
stead, a fluffy rose-coloured mull, which 
Aunt Sula had advised her to put on often 
for dinner, while she was visiting at Uncle 
Malcolm’s. 

She felt repaid for the change when she 
saw Aunt Fanny’s welcoming smile and 
25 


Jacquette, a Sorority Girl 

Quis’s glance of admiration, at breakfast. 
Uncle Mac studied her without comment, 
but, just as she was starting for school, 
he put his arm around her and whispered, 
tenderly, 

“ Your mother’s own daughter — that’s 
what you are ! Don’t let ’em spoil you with 
their secret societies and things. Keep 
your pretty head level.” 

The pretty head, hatless this morning, 
nodded confidently as Jacquette tripped 
away at Marquis’s side. 

Louise Markham joined them at the 
comer, and, a block or two farther on. 
Marquis excused himself to walk with a 
boy who had met them at one of the cross- 
streets. 

“ We needn’t feel jealous,” Louise said, 
with a smile, as Marquis left them. “ It 
isn’t because he prefers Clarence Mullen’s 
company to ours.” 

“ What made him go, then.?^ ” Jacquette 
asked. 


26 


Mademoiselle 


‘‘ Oh, business ! The Beta Sigs want to 
pledge that little fellow, and two or three 
other fraternities are after him, too, so 
Quis couldn’t lose this chance of courting 
him.” 

“ But, Louise, that boy has such a 
queer, sly-looking face! I thought so the 
minute I saw him. Is he nice.?* ” 

Louise shrugged her shoulders good- 
naturedly. “ His father has loads of 
money and a ball-room in his house.” 

“ You don’t mean to say that Quis’s fra- 
ternity would choose a boy for those 
things ? ” 

There was a scandalised note in Jac- 
quette’s voice, and Louise laughed. 

“ Not really,” she said. “ I don’t ac- 
tually know anything against that Mullen 
boy, but somehow, I feel just as you do 
^bout him — creepy — and I can’t help 
thinking that his father’s financial position 
may have a little to do with all the fra- 
ternities rushing him so hard. Maybe 
27 


Jacquette, a Sorority Girl 

that’s unjust. I don’t know — ^but I do 
know, Jacquette, that when a girl can look 
as much like a flower as you do in that pink 
dress, she has no business ever to wear plain 
things.” 

“Oh, Louise!” Jacquette protested, 
looking more like a flower than ever, as 
they turned into the school entrance, and 
walked up to the office to register. 

When they came out into the hall again, 
Louise said, “ Well, you’re assigned to 
room 17, I see. That means you’re going 
to bloom in Mademoiselle’s rose-garden. I 
’most wish I were a freshman or sopho- 
more, so I could be there with you. We 
seniors have to go up on the top floor.” 

“ What is Mademoiselle’s rose garden ? ” 

“ Come in here and see,” was the an- 
swer, as Louise led Jacquette into room 
17 and straight to Mademoiselle Dubois’s 
desk, where a half dozen pupils were stand- 
ing in line, waiting for the French teacher 
to assign them seats in her study room. 

28 



Just as she was starting for school. Uncle Mac 
put his arms around her 



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♦A, 


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Mademoiselle 


Mademoiselle, a slight figure dressed in 
black, was writing busily, but, after a 
moment, she lifted her head and fixed a 
pair of searching eyes on Jacquette. In- 
stantly, the girl was conscious of a force- 
ful character, masked by a dimpling face, 
which revealed nothing. 

“ Jacquette Willard,” Mademoiselle re- 
peated after Louise, in honeyed tones. “ A 
little French name, is it not.? But it is not 
a little French girl.? No.? Ah, a cousin 
of Marquis Granville, did you say.? My 
cunning chicken, I am charmed to meet 
you! You are going to be my child, for 
I know your cousin well, and, indeed, I 
am so fond of that little wretch!” 

Jacquette gasped, and, before she could 
stammer a word in reply, Louise’s laugh 
had bubbled forth. 

“ Your old abominable laugh, my sweet 
pet,” Mademoiselle chided, turning to 
Louise and speaking in the same melliflu- 
ous voice. “ You have carried it through 
29 


Jacquette, a Sorority Girl 

high school, and you will carry it into 
womanhood. It is scandalous, dearie. 
You shall have that seat next the aisle, my 
little plum-tree,” she added, addressing 
J acquette again. ‘‘ The one in the second 
row, honey, and Louise, the dear child, 
shall help you make out your programme 
for the quarter. You see that all the 
classes and all the hours are plainly writ- 
ten on the board, don’t you, dearie.? Go 
now, Louise, and help the little Willard, 
before the bell rings.” 

“ There ! How do you like Made- 
moiselle.? ” Louise whispered, as soon as 
they were seated. “ All the other teachers 
in high school call you ‘ Miss ’ — ^but not 
Mademoiselle! She makes you feel, just 
at first, as if you’d dropped back into kin- 
dergarten, but don’t deceive yourself — you 
haven’t I There isn’t a more respected, bet- 
ter obeyed teacher in Marston than Made- 
moiselle Dubois, and, as for French, what 
she doesn’t know about it isn’t worth learn- 


30 


Mademoiselle 


ing. Did you notice how she spoke about 
my laugh? She’s just right. I can’t con- 
trol it to save my life. But isn’t she 
great ? ” 

“ Great — I should think she was ! ” Jac- 
quette agreed, impulsively. “ I’m afraid 
of her and I like her at the same minute. 
‘ My cunning chicken’ ! Louise, I’ve had 
one year of French at home ; I hope I can 
take my second year with her.” 

“ All right ; let’s plan it that way.” And 
the girls fell to work on Jacquette’s pro- 
gramme. 

Tap, tap, tap, sounded on Made- 
moiselle’s desk, when they had nearly 
finished. 

‘‘ Now, my little flock,” said the small 
Frenchwoman, standing behind her desk 
to address the roomful of fifty young peo- 
ple, whose ages ranged from fifteen to 
eighteen. “ My sweet pets ” — she paused 
and dimpled — “ at the beginning of the 
year, I will explain to you the meaning of 
81 


Jacquette, a Sorority Girl 

the bells. You see, I never have the least 
particle of trouble with the dear children 
who study in my room — not the least par- 
ticle — after I have once explained the 
meaning of the bells. It is this: First 
bell, no walking; second bell, no talking; 
and third bell ” — ^her voice had dropped 
almost to a whisper — “ when the third bell 
rings, in Mademoiselle’s room, it is always 
as still as a little rose garden! ” 

“ What did I tell you ^ ” murmured 
Louise. “ See how they strain their ears 
to catch every word she says.” 

“ If I hear any voice,” Mademoiselle’s 
hushed tones went on, after she had cast 
one keen glance at Louise, “ if there is ever 
any sound at all, I know it must be an echo 
from that bad room across the hall, for 
my children never give me the least particle 
of trouble — the sweet pets! 

“ Very good. You are just as I knew 
you would be, dear children. Now, Alice, 
honey, when you registered yesterday, did 
32 


Mademoiselle 


you not ask to be excused from drawing, 
this quarter ? ” 

“Yes, Mademoiselle Dubois,” answered 
a tall, serious looking sophomore, who had 
evidently met Mademoiselle, before. 

“ Well, sweet pet, did you bring your 
note of excuse from mamma, to-day.? ” 

“ No, Mademoiselle, I forgot it.” 

“ I am so sorry, Alice, because you see, 
dearie, you must go right home after it, 
and that means you will miss the first and 
second period — both recitations for you — 
and that means ” — lingeringly and lov- 
ingly — “ that means two — little — zeros ! 
And you see, Alice, that it always pays, in 
Mademoiselle’s room, for her dear little 
peacocks to do everything just at the right 
little minute, because, if they don’t, it 
means t-r-o-t, trot ! ” 

She pointed a tiny finger at the door, 
and, to Jacquette’s wondering amazement, 
tall Alice meekly departed. 

As the door closed behind her, Made- 


3S 


JacquettCy a Sorority Girl 

moiselle assumed a meditative expression. 

There are three people talking in this 
room at present,” she said softly, address- 
ing a distant spot on the ceiling. “ I am 
one of them; I wonder who the other two 
could be ! Chester ! ” she added, suddenly, 
fixing her eyes on a corner of the room 
w'here a sly whispering was in progress. 
‘‘ Take your books, honey, and come to this 
row at once. No, not there,” she de- 
murred, as the big, broad-shouldered fel- 
low sheepishly obeyed. “ I reserve those 
seats for my French class, and if you 
should be studying there, and I should 
imagine you were one of my French class 
who was not paying attention, you might 
get your sweet little ears boxed! Now, as 
I was about to say, when I was so rudely 
interrupted ” 

But the things Mademoiselle wished to 
say had to be postponed, for the bell 
sounded, and the pupils of her second year 
French class — some from her own room, 
34 , 


Mademoiselle 


and some from other rooms — ^began to as- 
semble in the front rows. Louise gave 
Jacquette’s hand a farewell squeeze, and 
hurried away to a class of her own on the 
upper floor, while Jacquette, left alone for 
the first time, shyly took her place among 
Mademoiselle’s pupils, wondering, as she 
did so, whether she was likely to get her 

sweet little ears boxed ” by sitting at 
the wrong desk. 

The French recitation proved to be a 
taking of stock, by Mademoiselle, of her 
class’s stage of advancement, but it served, 
at the same time, to fix in the minds of 
those who had not worked with her before, 
the necessity of keeping eyes and ears 
open. 

Early in the hour, she called on Arline 
Grant, a much be-curled young lady, to 
give the rule under which a certain word 
preceded the verb in a French sentence 
they were discussing. 

Arline was silent. 


35 


Jacquette, a Sorority Girl 

“ Class,” said Mademoiselle, “We will 
sing for Arline a little song that we learned 
at the beginning of our first year in 
French. All together, ready ! First 
verse” (chanting): “Pronoun objects 
come before the verb! Second verse: 
Pronoun objects come before the verb! 
Third verse: Pronoun objects come before 
the verb ! Chorus : Pronoun obj ects come 
before the verb! Now, Arline, do you 
know the little rule, my pet.? ” 

Arline gave it. 

“ Triumph No. 1 ! ” Mademoiselle ex- 
claimed brightly. “ We have taught Ar- 
line something ! ” Then she looked 
sharply at her book, and said in a surprised 
tone, “ I notice ‘ mon amie ’ printed in the 
next sentence! ‘ Mon ’ — a masculine pro- 
noun — when the ‘ friend ’ referred to is 
feminine. A misprint, is it not.? Scratch 
it out, everyone of you, and write the 
feminine ‘ ma ’ in its place.” 

The pupils obediently made the change. 

36 


Mademoiselle 


“ Class, rise,” Mademoiselle commanded, 
and the class rose. 

“ Now, all who scratched that out, sit 
down,” she continued, and everyone except 
Jacquette sat down. 

“ My little Willard ! ” said Made- 
moiselle, in evident surprise. “ What are 
you walking around here for? ” 

“ Because I didn’t scratch it out,” Jac- 
quette replied, blushing furiously. 

“ And why not ? ” The deep dimples 
appeared in Mademoiselle’s cheeks. 

“ Because the pronoun ‘ mon ’ retains 
the masculine form before a feminine noun 
beginning with a vowel or h mute,” Jac- 
quette faltered, frightened almost out of 
her voice at finding herself the only one 
who knew it. 

‘‘ Excellent, dearie ! I am charmed ! 
You may be seated. And for the rest of 
you — zero ! ” Mademoiselle pronounced, 
dramatically. “ I don’t wonder you look 
chagrined, my pets,” she added, “ but you 
37 


Jacquette, a Sorority Girl 

must remember that, in Mademoiselle Du- 
bois’s classes, it pays to keep your wits 
about you.” 

“ Well, Mademoiselle,” one of the boys 
protested, with a shamefaced grin, “ it’s 
mighty hard for us to keep track of all 
those little things. Now, there’s another 
point bothers me; the same word has so 
many different meanings in French. How 
are we going to tell them apart ? ” 

Honey, how can I bear to have you 
ask me so many silly questions ! ” Made- 
moiselle answered, instantly, folding her 
arms high on her chest as she spoke. 
‘‘ Now, listen : There is a big — black — 
animal, with long — fuzzy — hair, which our 
President loves to shoot — alas ! Do you 
know the two meanings I gave to the word 
‘ bear ’ in that remark ? ” 

“ Why, y-yes,” Clarence stammered. 
The way you used it shows.” 

Mademoiselle suddenly waved her hand 
at him as one tosses farewell to a baby. 
33 


Mademoiselle 

“ Also in French, honey ! ” she told him, 
brightly. 

All this was very entertaining to Jac- 
quette, so much so that her algebra class, 
which met in the next hour and was taught 
by the dignified Mr. Pettingill, might have 
seemed dull except for the fact that she 
sat next to Etta Brainerd, who wrote her 
note after note and slipped them into her 
hand during the class period. 

It seemed, Jacquette learned while Mr. 
Pettingill imagined he was teaching her 
algebra, that the Kappa Deltas were ex- 
tremely anxious to get her into their so- 
rority, on account of Margaret Howland’s 
former friendship with her, and that they 
were planning to ask her to their spread 
that afternoon. To outwit them, the 
Sigma Pi girls proposed to put their 
colours — pale blue and gold — on Jac- 
quette, even before her Aunt Sula’s con- 
sent should come. In that way she could 
appear to be already pledged to them, and 
S9 


Jacquette, a Sorority Girl 

could have a good reason for declining the 
Kappa Delta’s invitation. 

As soon as the half-hour for luncheon 
came, the Sigma Pi girls gathered around 
Jacquette. 

“ We’re not asking you to sign the 
pledge without your guardian’s permis- 
sion, you understand, dear,” said Louise 
Markham, holding the blue and gold rib- 
bons in one hand and the enamelled pledge 
pin in the other. “ You simply promise, 
by wearing our colours this way, that if 
you ever do go any sorority, it will be 
Sigma Pi.” 

And the end of it was that, when a dele- 
gation of Kappa Deltas, headed by Mar- 
garet Howland, came after Jacquette, a 
few minutes later, they found her wearing 
the blue and gold. 

“ I’m dreadfully sorry we can’t be in the 
same sorority,” she told Margaret, hon- 
estly, “but my cousin thinks ” 

“ That’s just why I want you to meet 
40 


Mademoiselle 


our girls,” Margaret argued. “ Your 
cousin isn’t giving you a chance to judge 
for yourself.” 

“ That will do, Margaret ! ” exclaimed 
Etta Brainerd, stepping out of the close 
background, where she had been lingering 
to protect the Sigma Pi “ pledge.” “ I 
hate to say anything, because I know J ac- 
quette used to think a great deal of you, 
but you know as well as anyone that it 
isn’t honourable to try to get another 
sorority’s pledge to come to your spreads.” 

Then, without giving Jacquette time to 
do more than cast an apologetic backward 
glance at Margaret, Etta carried her off 
out of harm’s way. 

Marquis was delighted, that night, when 
he saw the Sigma Pi colours pinned over 
Jacquette’s heart, and heard her story of 
the day. 

“ You did exactly right,” he told her. 
“ It shows the Kappa Delts, once for all, 
just where you stand, and another thing 


Jacquette, a Sorority Girl 

I like about it is that it proves the Sigma 
Pi girls are dead anxious to get you. Oh, 
you’re all right, fairy princess!” 

And Jacquette glowed with pleasure at 
his words. 

The hours dragged slowly for a few 
days, after that, in spite of all the ab- 
sorbing new happenings. It was because 
Aunt Sula’s answer was being waited for, 
but it came, at last, and Jacquette waved 
it wildly out of her bedroom window at 
Louise Markham, who happened to be 
passing. 

“ Louise ! Louise I She says yes 1 ” she 
cried, joyfully. 

‘‘ Hurrah ! ” Louise called back. “ I 
can’t stop, now, but I’m proper glad. A 
delegation of us will be over to-night to 
pledge you, dear.” 

Then J acquette sat down alone and read 
Aunt Sula’s “ yes ” all through again. 

About the girls’ club you speak of,” 
42 


Mademoiselle 


the letter said, “ If it really must be de- 
cided before I come, I am going to leave 
it to you. You are almost a woman, now, 
and must begin to make your own de- 
cisions. 

“ I am assuming, of course, that Uncle 
Mac and Aunt Fanny approve, but, at the 
same time, I want you to use your own 
mind — not theirs — in forming your opin- 
ion. Find out, definitely, about the ex- 
pense connected with it, and be sure, from 
all standpoints, that you are not doing 
anything you may regret later. 

“ Loving you always, 

“ Tia.” 


43 


CHAPTER III 


TIA 

W HO mended the rip in my 
glove? ” Jacquette demanded, 
as she stood in her coat and 
hat, ready to start for school. “ Tia, you 
angel ! Stop hiding behind that paper ! ” 
A pair of brown eyes laughed over the 
top of the newspaper. Then a slight 
woman in a dark red morning gown, 
emerged into sight. “ I do feel guilty,” 
she admitted, roguishly. “ I ought to have 
trained you so well that you’d have mended 
it yourself.” 

“ Oh, I think you’ve done pretty well, 
considering the material you had to work 
on,” was the light-hearted answer, and 
Jacquette stopped to rearrange her hat 
before the mantel mirror as she spoke. 
“ You don’t know how afraid I was all 


44 


Tia 


day yesterday that some of the sorority 
girls would call me to account for that 
glove! They’re frightfully particular 
about such things.” 

“ Do they mind little things like a but- 
ton missing from a shoe.? ” Aunt Sula 
asked, demurely. “ If they do, I think 
I’ll petition them to labour with someone 
I know.” 

“ Oh, dear, does that show.? I didn’t 
think it could with this long dress. It 
seems to me I can’t get time to do the 
things I ought to.” 

Two months of school had gone, and 
Jacquette was living, with her grandfather 
and Aunt Sula, in a comfortable little 
home only a few blocks from Malcolm 
Granville’s large one. The pearl-set blue 
and gold pin, worn over her heart, pro- 
claimed that she had been initiated into 
her sorority, and her beautiful hair, tucked 
up in the back of her neck, and thoroughly 
hidden by the conventional big bow, was 
45 


Jacquette, a Sorority Girl 

witness to the fact that the Sigma Pi girls 
considered long, curly braids too childish. 

Not only had all the dresses brought 
from Brookdale been lengthened, but Aunt 
Fannie, prompted by Uncle Mac’s fond- 
ness for his pretty niece, had amused her- 
self by buying several new gowns for her, 
so that Aunt Sula, whose loving interest 
had gone into every garment Jacquette 
had worn since she was a tiny girl, felt an 
odd pang as she gazed after the smart 
young woman who started for school, 
morning after morning, in unfamiliar cos- 
tumes. 

Sula Granville had not married, but her 
heart was a mother heart, and the love she 
felt for this child of her only sister was 
mother love. Ever since she came to 
Channing, she had been missing Jac- 
quette’s sunny presence about the house, 
missing the spirit of helpful comradeship 
which she had grown to depend on in the 
Brookdale home, but, at the same time, she 
46 


Tia 


had realised that Jacquette was breath- 
lessly busy from eight in the morning, 
when she started for high school, until ten 
and after, every night, and the more she 
studied the condition, the more helpless 
she found herself in coping with it. 

“ I know how full your time is,” she 
sympathised, now; “couldn’t you plan to 
come home right after school, to-day, and 
do some of the left-overs.?” 

“ Sorority meeting, Tia.” 

“ I thought that was last Monday.” 

“ That was a special. This is the regu- 
lar one, and it’s a matter of loyalty to go. 
We have to pay a fine if we’re not there. 
And, to-morrow, Tia, there’ll be rush do- 
ings — a spread, you know — ^that will last 
till dinner time. And oh, by the way, I 
want Molly to iron my lace waist so that 
I can wear it to-morrow. The Kappa 
Belts are working awfully hard to get this 
girl we’re after, and it’s understood that 
we’re to sport up when we give a spread, 
47 


Jacquette, a Sorority Girl 

so the new girls will get the impression 
that Sigma Pi is the nicest bunch there is.” 

“ Oh ! A girl chooses her sorority by 
the way its members dress, does she.? ” 

“ Tia, that’s teasing ! First impress- 
ions do count, you know.” 

“ I see. Well, this begins like a gay 
week. See what the postman brought, just 
now. Uncle Mac has sent us tickets for 
the concert, Wednesday afternoon, because 
he noticed that the orchestra was going to 
play some of the Grieg music you worked 
at so hard, last year. Wasn’t he good.? ” 
A worried frown puckered Jacquette’s 
forehead. “ It was dear of him,” she 
said. “ But we Sigma Pi girls have prom- 
ised to go up and work in the new sorority 
rooms after school, Wednesday and Thurs- 
day both. There are pillows to make and 
curtains to hem and no end of things 
to do.” 

“ Oh ! Well, we can change the tickets 
to Friday.” 


48 


Tia 


“ That won’t do either.” Jacquette 
looked a little shame-faced as she said it. 
“ Friday afternoon we all have to sew on 
the new robes we are making for the initia- 
tion, and Saturday, the initiation takes all 
day, you know. So there it is, every after- 
noon ^his week taken, and Wednesday 
night Quis wants to bring a Beta Sig 
friend of his over here, and then I told the 
girls I’d make my pillow for the sorority 
rooms before Saturday. That will take 
at least two evenings, and you know, Tia, 
I have to keep a little time for studying! ” 
The apologetic tone of this last state- 
ment was too much for Aunt Sula. “ Have 
to keep time for studying besides doing all 
that sorority work.? ” she asked, with an 
air of gentle surprise. 

Jacquette pouted, and then laughed. 
“You make me think of Mademoiselle! 
Yesterday, there was an announcement of 
a basket-ball game on the blackboard, and 
down at the foot it said, ‘ Come, girls, and 
49 


Jacquette, a Sorority Girl 

help us yell ! ’ She looked at it ; then she 
said, in her sweet, soft voice. ‘ Come — 
girls — and help us — yell! So refined ! So 
suggestive of a lady ! Come — girls — and 
help us — yell! ’ Not another word, and 
wasn’t I glad I hadn’t written it! But 
that gentle sarcasm belongs to her. It 
doesn’t to you, Tia.” 

“Doesn’t it?” Aunt Sula leaned for- 
ward and took her girl’s hands in both of 
hers. “ Then I’ll say it in my own way. 
Jacquette, I am making up my mind that 
I’m sorry you joined the sorority.” 

“ Oh, you mustn’t speak like that to me, 
Tia ! It’s disloyalty to Sigma Pi to listen 
to it. Say anything you want to about 
me, but I can’t let you talk against my 
sorority. There’s Louise!” Jacquette 
added, brightening suddenly, as the Sigma 
Pi whistle sounded outside. “ I’ll have to 
go, dearest. Good-bye.” And off she flew. 

“ Hurry ! ” Louise called, as Jacquette 
came down the steps. “ Quis was here, but 
50 


Tia 


he couldn’t wait. The boys told him there 
were things doing over at school.” 

“What kind of things.?” Jacquette 
asked, half running to keep up. 

“ Oh, the senior boys are up to some- 
thing again. You know last week they 
painted those big, white ‘ Naughty-eights ’ 
all over the side-walks and the juniors 
worked all night, I guess, scrubbing them 
off with turpentine, and putting ‘ Naugh- 
ty-nines ’ in their place. Quis wanted to 
drop it, then. He’s class president, you 
know, and wants to keep things dignified, 
but some of the boys wouldn’t stop, 
and ” 

“Look there!” Jacquette exclaimed, 
suddenly, as, from two blocks away, both 
girls beheld a monster Indian in war-paint 
and feathers, limply hanging by his neck 
to the flagstaff on the topmost peak of 
the school building. A placard adorned 
his chest, bearing, in huge letters, the 
legend, “ ’09.” 


51 


Jacquette, a Sorority Girl 

That’s what they’ve done ! Hanged 
the junior class in effigy. But how did 
they ever get it up there ? ” 

As the girls neared the school, a cluster 
of their Sigma Pi sisters opened almost 
silently to receive them. Everybody was 
crowding around Mr. Branch, the princi- 
pal, to hear what he was saying. Marquis, 
as class president, had just disavowed all 
knowledge of the prank. 

“ That hung there all day yesterday, to 
amuse people on their way to church,” said 
Mr. Branch in a tone of annoyance. “ It’s 
a break-neck climb, but the one who put it 
up knows how to get it down ! ” 

A silence fell. 

“ Who did it ? ” he challenged, after a 
pause, and then a boy who had just come 
racing down the street, elbowed his way 
through the crowd, and took off his hat 
to the principal. 

“ I did, sir,” he said. 

Mr. Branch looked into the frank, sun- 


52 


Tia 


burned face. “ You ought to be past such 
foolishness, Drake,” he replied, gravely, 
but the sternness had suddenly gone from 
his voice. “ You’re a senior, this year, re- 
member. I shall expect you to take it 
down at the noon hour.” 

“ Who is that boy, Louise? ” Jacquette 
asked, eagerly, as Mr. Branch strode into 
the building and the pupils went trooping 
after. 

That’s Bobs Drake, the captain of 
the football team and idol of the school. 
Didn’t you notice Mr. Branch when he 
looked at him? That’s the way with all 
the teachers. They can’t be cross with 
Bobs more than a minute at a time.” 

Shouldn’t think they could ! He’s 
splendid. But how is he ever going to 
bring that Indian down ? ” 

“We’ll see how at noon. I’ll wait for 
you at this door,” said Louise, as they 
parted. 

Promptly at twelve, the two girls hur- 
5S 


JacquettCy a Sorority Girl 

ried out, just in time to see Bobs Drake 
throwing off his coat and buttoning his 
blue sweater close. The ring of boys and 
girls around him was growing thicker 
every minute. 

‘‘ I know where there’s a ladder, Bobs,” 
some one volunteered. 

“ No, thank you,” said Bobs, cheer- 
fully, and, without an instant’s hesitation, 
he began shinning up an oak tree, whose 
branches grazed the school windows. From 
a perch in that, he swung himself lightly 
to an addition which leaned against the 
main building, and, safely landed there, 
made a low bow to the admiring crowd 
now gathered. After that, by the aid of 
window ledges and cornices, he clambered 
to the many-gabled roof and began to 
climb — ^nimbly, cautiously. 

The late October wind crackled with a 
brittle sound through the yellow-brown 
leaves of the oaks. It flapped sharply at 
the girls’ gowns, as they stood there with 
54 


Tia 


the cold autumn sunlight shining down 
on their upturned faces. Suddenly, a gust 
of it snatched Bobs’s cap from his head, 
and swept it a block away before the best 
runners in Marston could capture it, but 
sure-footed Bobs, undisturbed, stood up 
on the highest gable, in the midst of an 
exultant shout from his spectators, and 
calmly watched the race to the end, before 
he knelt again, and crept carefully, slowly, 
along the last ridge-pole, straight to the 
Indian’s side! 

“ ’Rah for Bobs ! Bobs I Bobs 1 Bobs ! ” 
came from below, and then a silence fell 
while everyone watched to see what he 
would do next. Before they had seen, it 
was done. Whipping a ball of heavy twine 
from his pocket, Bobs had tied one end 
around the Indian’s neck, had cut the 
cords which bound him to the flag-staff, 
and was swiftly lowering him down the 
front of the building. 

With a whoop, seniors and juniors 
55 


Jacquette, a Sorority Girl 

closed upon the helpless dummy, but, in the 
end, the seniors triumphed, and bore the 
abject Indian, torn limb from limb, to a 
vacant field near by, where they promptly 
set fire to him. 

It was a tame cremation, though, with 
few spectators, for all the girls and most 
of the boys had lingered to see that Bobs 
got safely down. Everyone realised that 
there was actual peril in the feat he had 
undertaken so gaily, and each danger 
point passed in the downward climb 
brought forth a noisier cheering. Once 
he missed his footing and slipped, the 
length of his body, down the steep roof. 
The crowd held its breath, but he stopped 
himself somehow, and struggled back to 
safety, amid a tremendous yelling. At 
last, leaping down to the lowest roof, he 
caught a branch of the tree, went hand 
over hand into the boughs, and slid down 
the trunk to the ground, where he found 
himself looking straight into the rosy face 
56 


Tia 


of a girl with golden hair, who was clap- 
ping her hands and shouting “ Hurrah ! ” 
with the best of them. 

Bobs had never seen her until that min- 
ute, but, involuntarily, his hand went to 
his capless head. “ Thanks, I’m sure ! ” 
he said, with a merry twinkle. Then his 
admirers closed around him and carried 
him off to the lunch-room. 

What was that he said to you. Jack.? ” 
asked a resentful voice over her shoulder. 

“Oh, Quis, are you there.? He said 
‘ Thanks,’ that was all. I don’t know him, 
you see. Wasn’t it great.? ” 

“Great foolishness, yes! Don’t you 
know you mustn’t let fellows speak to you 
until they’ve been introduced.? ” Marquis 
answered, in an undertone, and Jacquette, 
turning away with the girls, felt, sud- 
denly, that the time might come when she 
should outgrow her cousin’s leading- 
strings. 

The week slipped away, after that, and 
57 


Jacquette, a Sorority Girl 


Saturday came. The Sigma Pi initiation, 
fixed for that day, was to take place at 
Nell Brewster’s, but early in the forenoon, 
two girls came down the street, leading a 
third, who was blindfolded, and deposited 
her in the laundry at Jacquette’s home, 
without a word to anyone. Jacquette had 
already gone over to Nell’s and presum- 
ably had offered the use of her house to 
the sorority, for, a little later. Miss Gran- 
ville found another strange girl in the 
pantry, taking a double handful of cookies 
out of the jar, and, still later, two more 
walked into the front door, without greet- 
ing of any sort, seated themselves in the 
living-room, and staid there, silent, for 
an hour. 

Aunt Sula had some difficulty in explain- 
ing these “ initiation stunts ” to her 
courtly old father, especially after he had 
tried in vain to make polite conversation 
with the two girls who had been rendered 
deaf and dumb by their vow of silence. 

58 


Tia 


“ Nothing excuses such rudeness, daugh- 
ter,” he remonstrated, shaking his silvery 
head. “ I don’t like this sorosis Jacquette 
is in.” 

“ Sorority, father,” Miss Granville 
prompted, with a smile. 

“ Call it what you will ; it’s just as bad,” 
he persisted. “ Those girls are too young 
to run such a society. They’ve proved it, 
to-day.” 

At ten o’clock that evening, a telephone 
inquiry brought back from Jacquette the 
word that the initiation was over, but re- 
freshments were not, and that a crowd of 
Beta Sigs, Quis among the number, had 
discovered what was going on, and had 
broken into Nell’s house, and insisted on be- 
ing served with some of the goodies. “ Oh, 
we’re having such fun, Tia!” Jacquette 
concluded. “ Don’t sit up for me, you 
and grandpa. Quis will bring me home, 
and I’ll come as soon as I possibly can.” 

Old Mr. Granville went to rest, then, 

59 


Jacquette, a Sorority Girl 

shaking his head over the change since the 
good old days in the country when his 
daughters were young, but Aunt Sula sat 
in her room and waited. It was after mid- 
night when she finally heard the careful 
click of the front door latch and the creak 
of the stairs as a much-subdued girl crept 
up. 

The feasting at Nell’s had lasted a little 
too long, and had been a little too noisy. 
Before the party had dispersed, Mr. Brew- 
ster, a blunt, outspoken man, had come 
down to the dining-room, where the boys 
were pelting each other with cake, and had 
given them a piece of his mind as to proper 
hours and fitting behaviour. Most of the 
girls had cried; the boys had gone home 
insulted and angry ; but, all the time, deep 
in her heart, Jacquette had felt that Nell’s 
father had just cause for his action, and 
now, as she laid off her wraps in her own 
room, she owned to herself that she was 
ashamed of the Sigma Pi initiation. 

60 


Tia 


Not since Brookdale had she needed, as 
she did at that minute, to talk things over 
with Aunt Sula, and when she saw the 
light still burning at the end of the hall, 
she went to the door, and peeped in. 

Sula Granville, in a pale blue wrapper, 
sat before the fire brushing out her long 
dark hair. She looked extremely girlish 
in the dim, flickering light, but Jacquette 
was not thinking of this as she paused in 
the doorway. Her heart was hungering 
for the sympathy which had always been 
hers, at need, from the only mother she 
had ever known, and she hesitated, now, 
because of a vague, unhappy feeling that 
something had come between them. It was 
a relief, then, when Aunt Sula, looking up, 
held out her hands without a word, and the 
next instant found Jacquette on her knees 
with both arms round the blue wrapper. 

Little by little the story of the evening 
came out, and, when she had heard it all. 
Aunt Sula said, ‘‘ Come down here, girlie, 
61 


Jacquette, a Sorority Girl 

with your head on my knee — the old Brook- 
dale way.” 

The tired girl slipped to the floor, and 
a grateful, mothered feeling came to her 
as she felt a gentle hand smoothing her 
hair for a minute, before Aunt Sula began : 

“You told me once, Jacquette, that 
every girl who joined Sigma Pi was al- 
lowed to except her mother, or guardian, 
when she took her pledge of secrecy. Do 
you remember.? ” 

“ Y-yes,” came the doubtful answer. 
“ The girls did say so before I joined, but 
I’ve found out since that they won’t ex- 
cuse your doing it unless it’s absolutely 
necessary.” 

“ And the result is, as you said the 
other day, that no outsider can judge 
sororities quite fairly, because the best 
part is secret. Now, I want to judge 
Sigma Pi fairly. I want you to tell me all 
the good and beautiful things about it.” 

There was a pause, while Jacquette 

62 


thought this over. Then she offered, ten- 
tatively : 

“ Surely you’ve noticed, Tia, how much 
more careful I am of my personal ap- 
pearance That’s sorority influence.” 

“ Good, too, unless it leads you to spend 
more money than you can afford on your 
wardrobe and to look down on the non- 
sorority girls who can’t dress so well,” 
Aunt Sula agreed. “ It has occurred to 
me, though, that when this elaborate at- 
tention to dress crowds out time for the 
care of one’s own bedroom, the sorority 
hasn’t taught quite daintiness enough.” 

Jacquette looked guilty, but she went 
on, sturdily, “ A sorority encourages a 
spirit of sisterhood, Tia. We have to take 
vows to love each other always, and help 
each other, and accept criticism from each 
other without getting angry.” 

“ Sisterhood.” The echo was gentle. 
“ What do you think, yourself, Jacquette, 
of a sisterhood with twenty girls which 
63 


Jacqiiette, a Sorority Girl 

makes you unsisterly to all girls outside 
that clique? ” 

“ Well, at least, it trains us to be loyal 
friends.” 

“ Perhaps ; but if loyalty to Sigma Pi 
makes you disloyal to duty at home or in 
school, isn’t there something wrong with 
it?” 

Into Jacquette’s thoughts flashed the 
memory that two of her Sigma Pi sisters 
had deliberately missed their afternoon 
recitations, the week before, because they 
considered it necessary to take a girl they 
were “ rushing ” to the matinee. “ But, 
Tia,” she hurried on, defensively, “ you 
forget its effect on scholarship. We’re 
ashamed to fall below passing mark, be- 
cause our pin will be taken off if we do.” 

Aunt Sula looked thoughtful. “ I 
wonder if a sorority can help scholarship 
while it uses up so many study hours? ” 

“ Oh, it does ! And then, it’s good so- 
cial training for us, too.” 

64 


Tia 


“ Does it teach you to give the Sigma 
Pi whistle to a girl a block away, when 
Pm walking and talking with you on the 
street ? ” Aunt Sula put in, quizzically. 

“No; but that whistle is the accepted 
way of hailing each other. All the girls 
do it; haven’t you noticed? Here’s an- 
other good point, though — a sorority in- 
terests nice girls in each other instead of 
their having their heads full of boys. And 
then — well, isn’t that enough ? ” 

“ Not quite. Don’t you think that, as 
long as your pledges are forced to do 
things which make them a nuisance to out- 
siders, you’re giving outsiders reason to 
think you girls are too young and foolish 
to have charge of a secret society? ” 

“ You mean our making that girl steal 
cookies ! ” Jacquette dimpled, in spite of 
herself, at the recollection. 

“ Yes ; everything of that sort. And 
one more thing ; I want to know, positively 
that there is nothing in the Sigma Pi in- 
65 


Jacquette, a Sorority Girl 

itiation that could offend the delicacy of 
any sensitive, modest girl.” 

Jacquette recalled a certain rite at 
which one of the pledges had balked in 
the initiation the day before, and flushed 
uncomfortably. Just then the bronze 
clock on the mantel struck one with a 
silvery note. Aunt Sula looked up, as if 
answering. 

“ That’s so,” she said ; ‘‘ it’s too late. 
An initiation that takes all day ought not 
to run into the night like this. Jacquette,” 
she concluded, “ I’ll make this bargain with 
you. I’ll be a friend to Sigma Pi, and 
never criticise it except as I may suggest 
something when we are all alone, if you’ll 
try your best to change these points I’ve 
spoken of.” 

“Oh, Tia!” Jacquette protested, lift- 
ing her head. “ You forget that I’m one 
insignificant little freshman. The girls 
wouldn’t listen to me.” 

“ One insignificant little freshman with 

66 


Tia 


the courage of her convictions can do 
something. I only ask you to try your 
best.” 

The golden head dropped again, and 
the little clock ticked away minute after 
minute while the soft light of the fire 
wavered over two still figures. At last the 
tall girl stood up. “ I’m going to try,” 
she said, very gravely. “ Give me your 
hand, Tia. Put your fingers this way. 
No, this way. There. It would be wrong 
for me to tell this to anyone else in the 
world outside of my sorority — and the 
girls might not understand how it’s right 
for me to tell even you — ^but that’s the 
Sigma Pi grip on our bargain! Good- 
night, darling.’^ 


'67 


CHAPTER IV 


BOBS 

I T was the noon half-hour at Marston 
High, and boys and girls were 
crowding into the little bakery 
f amiliarly known among them as the “ eat- 
house.” 

Louise Markham and Jacquette had 
been lucky enough to get a seat at one of 
the three oilcloth-covered tables, but by 
far the larger number, with their sand- 
wiches in their hands, were good-naturedly 
jostling for standing-room. 

Jacquette had decided that day, after 
a few weeks of single-handed effort, to 
take Louise into her confidence about the 
bargain with Aunt Sula, and Louise’s 
hearty response had been an immense re- 
lief. 


68 


Bobs 


“Your aunt’s exactly right!” she had 
declared. “ She’s gone straight to the 
weak points of Sigma Pi. Talk about a 
sorority helping scholarship 1 The only 
thing that has saved my scholarship at 
Marston is the fact that my mother 
wouldn’t let me go Sigma Pi until I 
was a junior, and, even since then, it has 
been hard work to keep sorority business 
from interfering with my school work. I 
believe any girl that gets deep in sorority 
doings the first year of high school will 
have trouble straightening things out and 
doing well with her studies the rest of the 
time, and I want you to tell your Aunt 
Sula, Jacquette, that I’ll stand by and 
work for every reform she asked for. I 
can propose things, being a senior, that 
the girls wouldn’t take from you, and I 
believe we can accomplish something.” 

“ Oh, Louise, you’re such a splen- 
did ” Jacquette began, but Louise 

nudged her to be quiet. Two boys had 

69 


Jacquette, a Sorority Girl 

slipped into places which had been vacated 
on the opposite side of the table, and, as 
Jacquette looked up, she found herself 
gazing into the blue eyes of Bobs Drake. 

Bobs had scarcely seated himself and 
ordered a glass of milk from the distracted 
young waitress, who was answering wild 
calls for “ redhots ! ” and “ soup ! ” from 
all directions at once, before the boys and 
girls began to swarm about him. 

‘‘ I hear you’ve gone into training, now, 
Bobs, just like a ’varsity man,” began one 
of the boys. “ They’re telling around 
that you live on birdseed and mush, and 
take long runs in the early morning. Is 
that right ” 

“ He wouldn’t come over to the frat 
house, last night, anyway,” put in Law- 
rence Beach. “ I understand he’s started 
going to bed at six, now.” 

“ Then we’ll have to go around and 
serenade him,” proposed Rex Morton. 
“ We’ll give him, ‘ Oh, does it not seem 
70 


Bohs 


hard to you ? ’ ” He hummed the first 
line, and the crowd of boys and girls took 
it up : 

“ Oh, does it not seem hard to you. 
When all the sky is clear and blue. 
And I should like so much to play — 

I have to go to bed by day ? ” 

they sang plaintively, while Bobs sat sip- 
ping his glass of milk with a good- 
humoured smile on his sunburned face. 

As the joking went on, Jacquette knew, 
whether she looked at Bobs or not, that 
his eyes were almost constantly on her. 
She wondered why. It flattered and em- 
barrassed her at the same time, and she 
was glad and sorry when Louise proposed 
to go. A moment later, in brushing past 
him on her way out, she was astonished to 
have him slip a folded note into her hand. 

“ Louise, he’s written something to me ! ” 
she exclaimed, as soon as they reached the 
street. “ Let’s see what it says.” 

71 


Jacquette^ a Sorority Girl 

She unfolded the paper and together the 
two girls read; 


“ Will you let me walk home with you 
after school? 


“ Bobs.” 


Do I know him well enough? Say 3^es, 
Louise ! ” Jacquette demanded. ‘‘ Blanche 
Gross introduced him to me the day after 
that Indian performance and I’ve talked 
with him in the halls some, since then, but 
I never dreamed of his giving me a second 
thought, when he’s so popular, and I’m 
just a freshman. Blanche says he has the 
dandiest morals of any boy she knows. 
What do you think, Louise? ” 

“ Oh, he’s nice. I’ve known him all my 
life and his mother is one of our best 
friends, but he’s not a Beta Sig, and Quis 
isn’t going to like it if you choose friends 
outside of his frat.” 

“ H’m ! Quis doesn’t own me. Besides, 
72 


Bobs 


I have to treat all fraternities alike, ac- 
cording to the bargain with Aunt Sula,” 
Jacquette declared, virtuously, and imme- 
diately began to compose her reply to 
Bobs. 

That reply consumed a large part of the 
study-hour following. The momentous 
questions involved were: first, how to be- 
gin; second, what to say; third, how to 
end. 

If Bobs were any other boy, it would 
be right to call him “ Mr.,” but no 
one in the school said “ Mr. Drake.” 
Everyone said “ Bobs.” His real name 
was Robin Sidney Drake, but that was 
absurd for Bobs! Besides, he had signed 
himself “ Bobs.” 

Meantime a procession of Aunt Sula’s 
admonitions in regard to writing notes to 
boys haunted Jacquette like ghosts, and 
made her tear up effort after effort. When 
the last was finally completed it read as 
follows : 


73 


Jacquette, a Sorority Girl 

“ Bobs: 

“ Yes. 

“ Jacquette Willard.” 

She laid this circumspect epistle on 
Bob’s desk as she passed out of the study- 
room to her English class, and two min- 
utes later Blanche Gross, acting the part 
of a Sigma Pi guardian, came hurrying 
after, and sitting down beside her, said 
reprovingly : 

“ You shouldn’t write notes to Bobs 
Drake, Jacquette. The minute you were 
out of the room he showed it to Rex Mor- 
ton, and they both laughed.” 

“ Let them ! ” Jacquette returned, flush- 
ing. ‘‘ There was nothing in it that the 
whole world mightn’t see. That’s the only 
kind of note I ever write to boys, and I 
didn’t learn the habit from Sigma Pi 
Epsilon, either ! ” 

Then, having heaped her secret vexa- 
tion with Bobs and Rex on the head of 
74 


Bobs 


Blanche, who was the most prolific writer 
of notes in the whole sorority, Jacquette 
proceeded to give conspicuous attention 
to her English teacher. 

It was an eventful moment when she 
walked down the street from Marston with 
the broad-shouldered captain of the foot- 
ball team at her side, and Jacquette hugely 
enjoyed the sensation she knew she was 
causing among the girls. Then they 
turned the corner, and, without giving 
her time to puzzle longer, Bobs began 
abruptly : 

“ I suppose you’re wondering what I 
want, and I’ll tell you, to begin, that I 
never would have written you that note 
if I hadn’t believed that you’re absolutely 
square.” 

If Jacquette had heard herself called a 
princess among women she could not have 
felt more pleased — and her face showed it. 

“ Of course you know,” Bobs continued, 
“ that our team has won every game it 
75 


Jacquette, a Sorority Girl 

has played against any other school this 
fall? ” 

“ I think I do ! ” she flashed, saucily. 

“ And you know that the next game is 
the last of the season — the one that decides 
the championship for the year.” Bobs 
cleared his throat, and Jacquette waited. 

“ Well, of course you know that, ac- 
cording to the rules at Marston, if a foot- 
ball man’s average for the week falls below 
on the day before the game, he’s debarred 
from playing. You knew that, didn’t 
you?” 

“ Yes.” 

She wondered what was coming. 

“ The point is this : I’ve had a hard 
pull to keep above in my studies and keep 
the team in shape, too, and I haven’t al- 
ways done it, either. You probably know 
that I missed playing in two games this 
season, because I was below, those two 
weeks. But, such marks as I have had, 
I’ve earned myself. I haven’t had credit 
76 


Bobs 


for a stroke of work that was done by any- 
one else.” 

“ Of course not ! ” 

He looked at her curiously. “ It’s a 
common thing, you know, for the fellows 
on the team to have someone else do their 
studying during the season,” he explained, 
defensively. “ But I’ve stood against it, 
and they all know it. That’s the reason 
I’m in such an awkward box, now. The 
fact is, I’m below in my English this week, 
and, besides all the rest of the work, there 
are two themes lacking, and, to make it as 
bad as it could be, one of those themes is 
a sonnet ! ” 

“ But Bobs, a sonnet — that’s easy ! ” 

“ That’s what I’ve heard about you,” he 
answered, hurriedly. ‘‘ They say you can 
write poetry as easy as breathing. Now, 
you wouldn’t believe it could be done, but 
I’ve managed, all through my high school 
course, to steer clear of sonnets. I believe 
it’s a put-up job, anyway, requiring so 
77 


Jacquette, a Sorority Girl 

much extra work this week. I have Eng- 
lish with Miss Breckinridge, you know, 
and she’s down on football. She thinks 
she can keep me out of the game by piling 
on a sonnet, after everything else. Well, 
she’s cute! I give up. I can’t write a 
sonnet.” 

“ Oh, Bobs 1 ” J acquette stared at him 
in blank dismay. “You’re captain! You 
must play in the championship game ! ” 

“ Then will you write the sonnet ? ” 
Jacquette stood still and met his honest 
blue eyes. No one who knew Bobs could 
help trusting him. As far as she could see, 
he was not ashamed of having asked the 
question. 

She knew that it was a common thing 
among the girls to prepare lessons for 
their boy friends on the team, but, some- 
how, it had never entered her mind that 
she could do such a thing. Suddenly the 
thoughl; that she — Jacquette Willard' — 
might gain or lose Bobs Drake the chance 
78 


Bohs 


to play in the championship game, took 
away her breath. 

“ But it wouldn’t be your work, Bobs,” 
she uttered, mechanically, while the sweet 
flattery of the situation tugged at her 
principles. 

“ What do I care ? ” he protested. I’m 
not going to write sonnets for a living. 
I’m going to be an engineer. Oh, I know 
how you feel about it, because my princi- 
ples are just the same, but this case is an 
exception. We wouldn’t be setting a bad 
example, even, because no one except you 
and me need ever know. That’s one reason 
I asked you ; I knew you’d never tell.” 

They had reached Jacquette’s home 
while he was speaking, and as she glanced 
at an upper window. Aunt Sula’s face 
leaned forward to smile a welcome. 

‘‘ Oh, Bobs ! ” Jacquette cried, reproach- 
fully, then, “ you said you thought I was 
square ! ” 

“ I do ! ” he answered, stoutly, and after 

79 


Jacquette, a Sorority Girl 

that they argued for a full half hour, 
standing there at the foot of the steps in 
the chill November day. 

The end of it was that Bobs went away 
with several new ideas about the conscience 
of a girl. Not only that ; he had promised 
to bum the midnight oil, before he slept, 
over a sonnet which was to be addressed to 
past football heroes of Marston High, 
whose ghosts, Jacquette had hinted, might 
be imagined as haunting the assembly- 
room where their gloriously-won banners 
still hung, and where the big mass-meetings 
were always held. 

It would have been far easier for 
Jacquette to compose that sonnet on the 
spot, than it had been to keep from doing 
it, and, as she entered the house she was 
feeling triumphant over the way she had 
insisted on Bobs’s working out his own 
scheme. Then, before she had laid down her 
books, the bell sounded, and, turning, she 
saw her cousin Marquis on the threshold. 

80 


Bobs 


“ Come out and walk around the block 
with me, J ack,” he demanded. “ I want to 
see you alone.” 

“ All right, Quis,” she answered, hap- 
pily, stopping to give her white-haired 
grandfather a hug as he came out of the 
library to meet her. “ Just sit down a 
minute, please, while I run upstairs to 
speak to Tia. Then I’ll be a votre ser^ 

But, instead of accepting her sugges- 
tion, Marquis excused himself to his 
grandfather and went out on the steps, 
where Jacquette found him a little later, 
with Clarence Mullen. Marquis had just 
loaded his own school-books on top of 
those Clarence already carried, and was 
giving a list of orders in a tone that a 
master might use with a slave. “ After 
that,” he was finishing, as Jacquette ap- 
peared, “ take these books to my house and 
wait there till I come, no matter how late 
it is.” 


81 


Jacquette, a Sorority Girl 

Jacquette glanced at Clarence with 
quick understanding. Far from seeming 
humiliated, he had an air of new impor- 
tance as he touched his hat to her and 
hurried away. 

“ So he’s pledged Beta Sig, is he.? ” she 
asked, with a smile. 

Marquis nodded without speaking, as 
they went down the steps together. 

‘‘ I’ve a small grudge against that boy, 
because you deserted Louise and me to 
walk to school with him one morning,” 
Jacquette went on, lightly. “ He’s been a 
rival of mine since then. Every time I 
want to speak to you, he’s right at your 
heels. I think you have some sort of fas- 
cination for him, Quis, the way he follows 
you around.” 

“ But of course the fact that he has a 
special admiration for your cousin doesn’t 
win him any favour in your eyes,” Quis 
said, stiffly. 

“Of course it does! In fact that’s the 


82 


Bobs 


only reason I haven’t let myself take a 
prejudice against him. Why, Quis!” — 
turning a surprised face to him — “ what’s 
the matter ” 

But Marquis met her questioning look 
coldly. “ I suppose you haven’t forgotten 
that Bobs Drake is an Epsilon Lambda 
Kappa,” he answered. 

There was something irresistibly funny 
to Jacquette in his solemn way of pro- 
nouncing those three Greek letters, es- 
pecially as the members of Bobs’s fra- 
ternity were universally known around 
school as the “ Elks.” In spite of herself, 
she smiled mischievously as she answered, 
“ No ; I haven’t forgotten.” 

“ Perhaps that doesn’t mean anything 
to you,” Marquis went on, severely, noting 
the smile. “ I’ve heard, before, that girls 
had no sense of honour, so probably the 
fact that the Elks are recognised as good 
friends of Kappa Delta, always working 
to land the best girls in that sorority, 
83 


Jacquette, a Sorority Girl 

wouldn’t make any difference to you — a 
Sigma Pi. Of course, my frat makes it a 
point to help Sigma Pi, and, naturally, it 
expects a little appreciation in return, but 
that’s not my point, now. How do you 
suppose it made me feel to have the other 
fellows in the frat house, just now, see 
you, my own cousin, walk past with a 
fellow that has treated me the way Bobs 
Drake has ? ” 

“ Quis, what on earth do you mean ? ” 

“ I mean that when he was elected cap- 
tain he put Ned Woodward on the team 
instead of me, just because I’m a Beta Sig 
and Ned’s an Elk. Yes, he did! Fra- 
ternity prejudice isn’t supposed to rule in 
the make-up of a football team, but it got 
in its work that time. Ned’s no better 
man than I am, and most of the fellows 
will tell you he isn’t as good. Then Bobs 
made me his sub. That means I have no 
chance to play, ever, unless he falls below 
in his marks or gets hurt in the game. 

84 


Bobs 


Haven’t you caught on to the fact that 
the reason I could play in those two games, 
early in the season, was because Bobs 
Drake wasn’t above, those weeks? Do jmu 
know that a fellow has to play at least 
two games and a half, in order to win his 
football emblem? Unless I play another 
half-game with the team — and there’s 
precious little hope of it, now — I won’t 
have a right to wear the letters of my 
school on my sweater, this year.” 

“ But Quis ” 

“ I tell you, Bobs Drake doesn’t intend 
I shall have that right. He thinks I need 
taking down because I’ve lived abroad, or 
some such rot. But he’s hurting himself, 
all right ! Talk about his being the idol 
of the school! You wouldn’t think so if 
you could hear the fellows talk, down at 
the Beta Sig house. They won’t get over 
his slight to me in a hurry, and, for my 
part, I never shall. You can choose be- 
tween Bobs Drake and me, right here and 
85 


Jacquette, a Sorority Girl 

now, Jacquette. You know the facts. 
Are you going to have anything more to 
do with him? ” 

Jacquette hesitated an instant, but that 
instant was too much for Marquis’s hurt 
pride. He said something that stung, and 
she answered back as sharply as she could. 
They went around the block, not once, but 
five times, before Jacquette finally rushed 
into the house and up to Aunt Sula’s room, 
where she flung herself on the couch in a 
tempest of tears. 

“Oh, Tia, Tia! Quis is dreadfully an- 
gry at me ! ” she sobbed out. “ He has said 
such awful things ! He has even accused 
me of coaching Bobs Drake to keep him 
above this week, so that he can play in 
the championship game and keep Quis 
out!” 


86 


CHAPTER V 


THE GAME 

T his is to certify that Robin Sidney 
Drake is above in all his studies at 
Marston High School, and quali- 
fied to enter the football game on Satur- 
day, November 16, 1907.” 

Those were the words on the paper 
which Bobs fluttered in Jacquette’s face 
when he met her in the hall between bells, 
on Friday afternoon. The document was 
signed by all his teachers, and, at the foot, 
appeared the principal’s name, preceded 
by the mystic letters, “ O. K.” 

“Hurrah!” she cried, her face pink 
with gladness, in spite of an uncomforta- 
ble thought of Marquis. “ You did it 
yourself, that’s the best of it! Now, you 
87 


Jacquette, a Sorority Girl 

may decide to write sonnets for a living, 
after all.” 

“Not much!” he denied, so fervently 
that Jacquette laughed. 

“ How perfectly funny it looks to 
see your name written, ‘ Robin Sidney 
Drake ’ ! ” she went on, still admiring the 
paper. 

“Why.? Isn’t it a nice name?” he 
asked, anxiously. Bobs had always cher- 
ished a haunting doubt about the propriety 
of naming a boy after a bird. 

“ Oh, yes, beautiful — only nothing 
seems quite right for you but Bobs.” 

“ All right, say it then. By the way, 
‘ Miss Willard ’ seems perfectly funny to 
me.” 

“Why? Isn’t it a nice name?” she 
mocked. 

“ Oh, yes, beautiful — only not quite 
right for you.” 

“ What is right for me? ” 

Bobs hesitated, but he knew what he 


88 


The Game 


wanted. “ Quis calls you, ‘ Jack,’ ” it 
came out at last. 

“ All right, say it, then ! ” 

They were still laughing over this little 
skirmish when Mademoiselle passed them 
on the way to one of her French classes. 

“ Coming to the game, to-morrow, 
Mademoiselle .? ” Bobs asked her. 

“ No, lambkin, I shall not come,” she 
answered, sweetly. “ I dearly love the 
little boys who play football, biit I would 
so much rather go to see them in the hos- 
pital, afterward ! ” 

Bobs laughed, and before he could 
speak. Mademoiselle hurried along, add- 
ing over her shoulder : 

Honey, I know just one thing about 
the little children who play football. 
Sometimes — once in a long while — they 
pass my examinations ! ” 

The big fellow sent a smile of genuine 
liking after her. “ Can’t get ahead of 
Mademoiselle,” he said, but, to his sur- 

89 


Jacquette, a Sorority Girl 

prise, as he turned back to Jacquette, she 
met him with a serious, almost rebuking 
gaze. 

“ Bobs,” she said, “ Quis thinks there’s 
no excuse for a football man’s having the 
reputation Mademoiselle gave you just 
now. He says a fellow can play football 
and keep up his studies, too, if he tries 
hard enough. He does it. He stands well 
in everything, and you know he’s a good 
football player.” 

“ Oh, yes,” Bobs assented, carelessly. 
‘‘ Quis never has to work on his lessons, 
though. He just looks at ’em. Most of 
us have to peg.” 

“ Bobs,” said Jacquette, with a sudden 
I little tremble in her voice, “ can’t you — 
couldn’t you, possibly — Bobs, won’t you 
please manage, somehoyv, to put Quis on 
for the game, to-morrow.^ ” 

Bobs’ face was blank with astonishment. 
“ What can I do ? ” he exclaimed. “ He’s 
my sub, you know. You wouldn’t have me 
90 


The Game 


deliberately get smashed to give him a 
chance? ” 

‘‘ Of course not ! But Quis is as good 
as any of the team. You know that. Why 
couldn’t you put him on instead of one of 
the others? The rest have all played 
enough to win their emblems, haven’t 
they? ” 

“Yes, but see here! I can’t pick a 
fellow off the team and put another in his 
place, as if they were so many ninepins. 
They have feelings — and rights, too. A 
girl can’t understand I ” 

“ I understand this much,” she insisted, 
her eyes filling with tears, “ you’re the cap- 
tain, and the boys think whatever you do 
is right, anyway, and you could manage it, 
somehow! I stood up for you to Quis, 
Bobs, but if you really did keep him off the 
team just because he was a Beta Sig, and 
now won’t even let him win his emblem, I 
can’t help thinking you haven’t been 
square ! ” 


91 


Jacqwette, a Sorority Girl 

“ It wasn’t all because he was a Beta 
Sig,” Bobs protested, warmly. ‘‘ But, 
other things being equal, any fellow’d give 
the preference to his own fraternity. Quis 
would, himself. Why, the Beta Sigs ran 
the team like tyrants, last year, and this 
time we thought the Elks might have a 
turn. ’Tisn’t right, though. I’ve been 
sorry, ever since, that I didn’t put Quis on, 
but I can’t help it, now. It’s too late.” 

Jacquette listened unmoved. “ You 
could do it if you wanted to. I know you 
could,” was all she said, as she hurried off 
to her class. 

They had been standing by the door of 
an apparently empty recitation room, but, 
as they turned away, the small, dark face 
of Clarence Mullen peered at them cu- 
riously from the doorway. He had been 
putting some work on the blackboard, just 
inside the room, and had heard every 
word. 

Long before two o’clock, the next after- 

92 


The Game 


noon, twenty Sigma Pi girls, in gala attire, 
were seated in the front row of the grand 
stand, waiting for the championship game 
to begin. Just behind them sat their 
rivals, the Kappa Deltas, while less im- 
portant sororities — each a clan by itself — 
were scattered through the crowd as near 
to the front as they could find places. It 
was Marston against the Daniel Webster 
High School, and the contest would be the 
closest of the season. 

Gradually the seats filled until the stand 
where the Marston pupils sat, and the 
other on the opposite side of the field, 
which was reserved for students from 
Webster High, were both packed. 

At last a gate at the end of the field 
swung open, and the Webster team came 
trotting out. Like one body, every person 
on the Webster grand stand was on his 
feet, and black and red banners fluttered 
out from end to end of that mass of people, 
while boys and girls together yelled: 

93 


JacquettCy a Sorority Girl 


“Webster! High! 

Hi! Yi. 

Sky! High! 

Webster!” 

Flutter — flutter — flutter — said the black 
and red, and the roaring from the Webster 
side waxed louder and louder, as the Daniel 
Webster team began its signal practice on 
the field, but all this time the Marston 
stand remained a model of dignified silence. 

A little longer. Then watches began to 
be pulled out. What was the matter It 
was past time for the game to begin. 
Where were the Marstons.? 

At last, just as everyone was asking this 
question, the other gate opened — another 
team was in the field ! Presto ! The Mara- 
ton grand stand was on its feet. Blue and 
white! — blue and white! — ^blue and white! 
— rippling, waving, flapping in the No- 
vember sunshine, while the new cry that 
rent the air was : 


94 


The Game' 


“Osky! Wow! Wow! 

Skinny! Wow! Wow! 

Marston! Wow!” 

“ Skin Marston ! 

Wow! Wow! Wow!” 

came back from the Websters in a deafen- 
ing screech, and of all the voices on both 
sides, no two were used more vigorously 
than those of Jacquette and Louise, who 
stood in the front row of the Marston 
stand, and “ osky-wow-wowed ” with all 
their girlish might for the glory of their 
school. 

“ I don’t see Bobs anywhere,” Jacquette 
whispered, as she rested her lungs for a 
minute. “ I can usually pick him out first, 
because he doesn’t wear any head guard, 
and by his white sweater, too. Does he 
wear a different colour from the rest be- 
cause he’s captain It’s lots more eflPective 
than the blue ones the other boys have.” 

95 


Jacquette, a Sorority Girl 

‘‘ I know,” Louise assented, with her 
eyes on the field. ‘‘ The blue ‘ M. H.’ is 
pretty on the white, isn’t it ? Sh ! — look ! ” 

The whistle had blown and the teams 
were lining up for the game. People had 
settled down into their seats, and were 
watching eagerly. “ There’s Reddy ! ” 
“ Go it, Reddy ! ” “ That’s Shorty ! ” 

‘‘Look at Ned!” “Come on. Chub!” 
were the explosive cries that had taken the 
place of continuous yelling as the game 
began. Then — attention ! 

Jacquette clutched Louise’s hand. 
“Bobs isn’t there! Who’s quarter-back 
It’s Quis ! ” 

Quis it was, running the team in Bobs’s 
place. What did it mean.? Where was 
Bobs.? But the game had started. 

Forward — and back! Forward — and 

back! Forward — and back! — struggled 
the two teams, now on Marston territory, 
now almost to the Daniel Webster goal. 
Two more evenly matched schools it would 
96 


The Game 


have been hard to find. Each had behind 
it that season an unbroken series of 
triumphs ; to both of them this game meant 
more than the mere winning of the cham- 
pionship banner — it meant the overcoming 
of a hated rival. 

Where was Bobs Drake That question 
was the undercurrent of all the perfunc- 
tory cheering on the Marston stand, and 
with Jacquette, it swept away every other 
thought. 

“It’s my fault!” she kept repeating in 
a horrified tone, to Louise. “ It’s all my 
fault! Look! We’re losing ground ! We 
are ! Louise, I made him let Quis play. If 
Marston’s beaten, it’s all my fault! ” 
“Nonsense!” Louise insisted. “Do 
you think Bobs Drake would desert the 
team because a girl told him to? There’s 

some other reason. But look ! Oh ” 

No one ever knew just what happened. 
Two minutes of play were left. There was 
a weak spot somewhere in the Marston 
97 


Jacquette, a Sorority Girl 

line ; a trick play ; a wildly struggling 
mass. Then a red-clad form, the Webster 
quarter-back, pursued in vain by the best 
men on the Marston team, shot across the 
field, and fell exhausted, with the ball in 
his arms, just over the Marston line! 

An attempt to kick goal failed; time was 
called; the first half was done; the score 
stood five to nothing in favor of Webster 
High! 

The Webster yelling was terrific, as the 
tangle of human beings began to resolve 
itself into individuals, and clear the field, 
but among the Marstons arose a great 
buzz of anxious questioning. Where was 
Bobs.? What had become of their cap- 
tain .? 

Louise was trying to keep Jacquette in 
her place until they could get some news. 
“ But I can’t sit here and wait ! ” Jacquette 
refused, excitedly. “ I must find some- 
body and do something ! ” 

“ Well, I’m going with you, then,” 
98 


The Game 


Louise gave up at last. “ Keep our 
places, girls,” she called to the rest of 
the Sigma Pi crowd, as she followed Jac- 
quette. 

“Now, what can you do?” she de- 
manded, as she overtook her. “ A girl 
can’t go to training quarters.” 

“ I don’t know ! Can’t I send a message 
to Bobs, some way ? ” 

“ There goes Bud Banister ! He’s 
manager of the team,” cried Louise. 
“ Bud ! Bud ! Tell us what’s the matter ! ” 

“ Matter enough ! ” the tall, lanky fellow 
flung back angrily, as he ran past. “ Bobs 
went off* down-town on the two o’clock train 
and sent us word to go on with the game 
without him ! ” 

“I told you, Louise!” Jacquette 
gasped. “ Bud, wait 1 ” she called. 

“ Miss Willard ! Look here I ” put in a 
breathless voice at Jacquette’s elbow, and, 
turning, she saw Clarence Mullen, his 
small, dark face the sickly colour of fear. 
1)9 


LOFa 


Jacquette, a Sorority Girl 

‘‘ What shall I do ? ” he demanded, as if 
consulting a confidante. “ I told ’em he 
went down-town, but it wasn’t so. I’ve got 
him locked in the gymnasium, over at 
school, but I can’t let him out for the next 
half, even if I want to, because the janitor 
came out of the building when I did, and 
he locked the outside door, and I haven’t 
got a key to that ! ” 

Jacquette whirled around, and towered 
above the boy’s shrinking figure. “ What 
are you saying? ” she cried out, seizing 
him by both shoulders in her excitement. 
“ You locked Bobs in the gymnasium? ” 

“ Yes ! ” He faltered under her wrath- 
ful glance. “ I — I heard you talking to 
him yesterday, and I — I knew the Beta 
Sigs all thought it was dirty work that 
Granville couldn’t win his emblem, and — 
I had the chance ! He was late, and he ran 
down to the gym alone to change his 
clothes, and left the key in the outside of 
the door, and while he was at his locker, I 
100 


The Game 


shut it and turned the key, and then the 
janitor came away when I did, so there 

was no one to hear him and I told ” 

“ I believe it’s true ! ” Louise broke in. 
“ There goes Mr. Branch, now, with Bud 
Banister ! We must tell them — quick ! ” 
The grey-haired principal of Marston 
turned in surprise, as the girls, followed by 
Clarence, dashed up behind him, but, be- 
fore their jumble of explanation was done, 
he started for the school, racing like a boy 
with Bud Banister. Mr. Branch had a key 
to the building, and, as they came near, 
they heard shouting and pounding, and 
saw Bobs’s flushed face looking out 
through the iron-barred basement windows 
of the gymnasium. 

“ Everybody in the block has gone to 
the game,” Bud panted, “ or someone 
would have heard him, sure ! ” 

It was the work of one excited moment 
to set Bobs free, and no time was wasted 
in words. The case of Clarence Mullen 


101 


Jacquette, a Sorority Girl 

could wait ; the game would not. All Bobs 
asked was how the score stood, and 
whether the second half had begun, and 
even this information he took on the run. 
Not one of them could keep up with him 
on the way back to the field. Bud Banister 
was at his heels; Jacquette and Louise 
trailed after, and, last of all, came Mr. 
Branch, with a stern hand on the shoulder 
of Clarence Mullen, questioning him 
sharply, as they hurried along. 

The Sigma Pi girls on the grand stand 
received Louise and Jacquette in a flutter 
of curiosity, for only stray rumours of 
Bobs’s desertion had been passed along to 
them, but, before there was time for ex- 
planation, the whistle blew, and all eyes 
turned to the field. 

Then a shout went up — ^bigger and 
wilder than any shout that had gone be- 
fore. Bobs Drake was there! Marston 
was safe! 

As the teams faced each other, just be^ 
10 ^ 


The Game 


fore he took his place as quarterback, Bobs 
had passed along the line, murmuring a 
personal word of encouragement to each 
of the boys. Up to that instant, they had 
been parts of a well-oiled machine; now 
they crouched there, every man of them 
ready to play that game with his head, his 
heart, and his whole soul. 

On the grand stand where the Sigma Pi 
girls were sitting, a quick glance of intel- 
ligence ran along. ‘‘ Webster never would 
have made that touchdown if Bobs had 
been here!” was whispered from one to 
the other. 

“ That’s not fair 1 ” Louise murmured 
to Jacquette. “ I’m not saying anything 
against Bobs, but my brother says there 
isn’t a better quarterback on a high school 
team anywhere than Quis.” 

Meanwhile, down in the field, the strug- 
gle of the first half was being repeated. 
Marston was reinforced by Bobs’s pres- 
ence, but Webster played with the confi- 
103 


Jacquette^ a Sorority Girl 

dence born of success, and, again, each 
fought an obstinate foe. 

If systematic cheering could have won 
the game, Marston would have had it. 
Over and over, the grand stand rose to its 
feet and shouted as one man such hearten- 
ing yells as, 

“Harum! Scarum! Wah Whoo! 

Hear us ! Cheer us ! White and blue ! 

We play- football ! That’s no joke! 

Marston High School! Hie! Haec! 

Hoc!” 

Down below. Captain Bobs Drake, 
dimly conscious of the support the school 
was giving him, seemed, by sheer force of 
will, to be driving his team toward the far 
white goal line which meant victory. The 
score still remained as at the end of the 
first half. As the close of the game ap- 
proached, he realised, almost with despera- 
tion, that no combined effort on the part 
104 


The Game 


of the team could break down the defence 
which confronted it. He, Bobs Drake, 
must win that game. 

“ Seven rahs for the team ! ” roared the 
man who was directing the cheering from 
the Marston stand, and, “ Rah ! Rah ! 
Rah ! Rah ! Rah ! Rah ! Rah ! Bobs ! ” was 
exploded on the air. 

But Bobs heard none of it. 'At that 
moment, a fumble on the part of one of 
his men, had placed the ball at his feet, and 
like a flash, with the pig-skin in his arms, 
he had broken loose, hurdled a crouching 
player, flung two more out of his path — 
and gained the line. 

Five to five — said the score ! Marston’s 
one chance of winning depended, now, on 
Bobs’s ability to gain an extra point by 
kicking the ball over the cross-bar between 
the goal-posts. There was a moment of 
breathless suspense. Then the ball sailed 
proudly over the bar — time was called — 
and the Marston crowd went wild ! 


105 


Jacquette, a Sorority Girl 

The game was won. The Marston stand 
emptied itself like an avalanche into the 
narrow space between it and the fenced-in 
field. The wonder was that everyone got 
down alive, for the leaping and scrambling 
and pushing were terrific. Everyone 
wanted to be first at the gate where the 
team was coming out on its way back to 
training-quarters. 

From their seat in the front row, the 
Sigma Pi girls had best chance, and 
Jacquette and Louise stood close to the 
entrance as the triumphal procession ap- 
♦ peared. 

First came Bobs, proudly borne aloft 
by four of his team. There was mud 
on his forehead, mud on one cheek, and a 
long scratch on the other — ^but he was a 
hero, every inch, in the hearts of his com- 
rades, and the ovation they gave him 
proved it. 

Close behind him rode Quis Granville, 
and after him the rest of the eleven, each 

joa 


The Game 


lifted on the shoulders of three or four 
fellows. 

When they had all tramped by, the 
crowd of schoolboys that always straggles 
after the team fell into line behind them, 
and the Sigma Pi girls began to chatter. 

“ What will they do to that wicked little 
Clarence Mullen ? ” Blanche Gross de- 
manded. She had been gleaning the facts 
from Louise and passing them on. “ He’ll 
surely be expelled ! ” 

“I don’t know! But I could forgive 
him, after that victory 1 ” put in Mamie 
Coolidge, who had been screaming, and 
jumping up and down until her new red 
velvet hat was flopping wildly over one 
ear. ‘‘Jacquette Willard, you tell your 
cousin for me that I never saw such a 
tackle as that in all my life! ” 

“ Yes, but think of Bob’s kick ! ” Etta 
Brainerd put in, soulfully. “ Didn’t he 
look happy when they carried him by? 
He saw us — don’t you think so ? 

1Q7 


Jacquette, a Sorority Girl 


He looked straight at you, Jacquette,” 
Louise whispered. 

I know it,” she whispered back, “ and 
I was so busy waving to him that I never 
even saw Quis until he was away past ! ” 


CHAPTER VI 


THE MASS-MEETING 

T here ! ” said Jacquette, holding 
up a huge yellow chrysanthe- 
mum that she had just finished. 
‘‘Would anyone guess it was paper 
That’s my fiftieth, and I must go.” 

A committee of Sigma Pi girls had met, 
that afternoon, in the sorority rooms 
which were on the third floor of Blanche 
Gross’s house, to work on the decorations 
for the annual dance. 

“ Aren’t they going to look lovely, nod- 
ding around among yards and yards of 
blue ribbon ! ” Blanche exclaimed, twirling 
a duplicate of Jacquette’s flower above her 
head. “ Don’t go, J acquette,” she added, 
as a white-capped maid appeared with a 
tray. “ There are signs of hot chocolate 
109 


Jacquette, a Sorority Girl 

on the horizon. Besides, we faithfuls may 
have to do more than fifty apiece unless 
the rest of the girls come to time. We 
must have a thousand chrysanthemums, 
you know, or it won’t make any show, at 
all.” 

‘‘ Oh, well, I can’t resist the chocolate,” 
Jacquette yielded, sitting down again, 
“ but I must skip, right after that. Truth 
is, there’s been so much to do about the 
dance that I’ve scarcely looked at a lesson 
for a week, and I simply must get in a 
little studying before my algebra exam, 
to-morrow morning.” 

“ What a nuisance to have exams the 
week of the dance ! ” Mamie Coolidge sym- 
pathised, as the chocolate was being 
handed around. “ Oh, by the way, 
Jacquette, what about your carriage for 
the dance.'’ I heard your aunt wouldn’t 
let you have one.” 

‘‘ What ! Going to a formal dance with- 
out a carriage .J”’ cried Etta Brainerd, in 
110 


The Mass-Meeting 

a scandalised tone. “ J acquette — you 

poor girl ! ” 

Jacquette flushed. “Pity’s wasted, 
Etta,” she answered, rather curtly. “ I 
expect to have a carriage.” 

“ But since when ^ ” Mamie persisted. 
“ Flo Burton told me you couldn’t.” 

“ If you want the whole story, it’s this,” 
said J acquette. “ At first. Aunt Sula 
didn’t like my asking a boy to take me to 
the dance, but when she found it was the 
sorority way, she let me invite Bobs. Then, 
when she found that he was expected to 
pay for a carriage, she did suggest that I 
do without one. You see, she supposed, 
because we’re young, the whole thing 
would be simple — early hours and all that. 
But when I told her how it really was, she 
said she was going to hire the carriage for 
me herself, and that I should invite Louise 
and Bud Banister to go in it with Bobs 
and me. So I did.” 

“ And a lovely plan, I call it ! ” Louise 
111 


Jacquette, a Sorority Girl 

chimed in. “ You’d have laughed to see 
the look of relief on Bud’s face when I 
told him! It isn’t so easy for him to get 
money from his father, I guess. You 
' know, girls, it is a sort of hold-up, the 
way we invite the boys and expect them 
to furnish carriages.” 

“ Oh, I don’t know,” Mamie objected, 
while she dropped another lump of sugar 
in her chocolate. “ They get a chance to 
come to a dance that costs us nearly three 
hundred dollars. My mother thought 
that was terribly extravagant until I told 
her how much worse some other sororities 
are. Did you know the Omikron Gammas 
had to put up twenty dollars apiece for 
their dance, besides the regular dues? I 
say it’s pretty creditable to Sigma Pi, that 
we draw all our funds out of the bank and 
give our dance without any extra taxing, 
when we may be needing that money any 
time, to fight the Board of Education 
with ! ” 


112 





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The Mass-Meeting 

Everybody, except Mamie, laughed. 
She was the spoiled child of Sigma Pi, and 
when she lifted her doll face to make a re- 
mark it was always the signal for indulgent 
smiles. 

“ I wouldn’t say that outside, Marne,” 
Blanche advised. “ It might not sound 
well to the school authorities.” 

“ It’s true, just the same. Didn’t Sigma 
Pi have to give a hundred dollars to the 
inter-fraternal league, last year, when we 
got the injunction to keep the Board from 
enforcing that rule against secret socie- 
ties And if the Board makes any more 
silly old rules, the boys say we’ll have to 
get a good lawyer, and fight the thing to 
a finish.” 

“ J ust think, — ^what if they should ever 
succeed in shutting secret societies out of 
high school, altogether ! ” Louise sug- 
gested. 

“ They never can. We’re too powerful 
for them,” Blanche said, decidedly. ‘‘ The 
113 


JacquettCy a Sorority Girl 

only result would be that we’d have to work 
in the dark.” 

“ Well, in the meantime, yours truly is 
going home to study,” Jacquette put in, 
setting down her cup. “ ’Twas superfine 
chocolate, Blanche,” she added, as she 
stepped gingerly over the billows of tissue 
paper that covered the floor. 

“Wait for me. Jack,” called Louise. 
“ I’ve made sixty chrysanthemums ; that’s 
ten more than my share, and I’m needed at 
home, myself. Mother isn’t well to-day.” 

“Pretty sorority spirit you girls show ! ” 
Etta grumbled, as she began crimping 
yellow petals again. “ You might stay 
and help the rest of us, even if you did get 
yours done first.” 

No one echoed Etta, but there was a 
subdued manner about the farewells that 
seemed to give consent to her feeling, and, 
as the two girls walked down the street to- 
gether, Jacquette said: 

“ Louise, sometimes it seems as if I 


114 


The Mass-Meeting 

couldn’t do enough for Sigma Pi to suit 
the girls. They call me a traitor every 
time I speak of having to study, or to do 
anything at home, and, truly, I’m so 
rushed that I can’t get time to mend my 
own stockings ! There’s sorority business 
on hand from morning till night.” 

‘‘ I know ; all you can do is to hang on 
to your own judgment and not let the girls 
put too much on you. They count on the 
freshmen being flattered at the chance of 
doing most of the work, you know. There 
goes Quis around that corner, Jacquette. 
By the way, I was glad to see you were 
on speaking terms with him, this morn- 
ing.” 

“ Yes ; we had to make it up after a 
fashion. But, oh, how angry he is with 
Clarence Mullen ! ” 

“ I don’t wonder at that.” 

“No; I don’t. He’s afraid people may 
think he knew what Clarence was going to 
do; so he’s making his disapproval as 
115 


Jacquette, a Sorority Girl 

public as he can. Of course be won’t let 
Clarence into Beta Sig, now, and he’d like 
to have him expelled from school, but Mr. 
Branch takes the ground that Clarence is 
less to blame than the big boys that talked 
all this feeling into him. If that’s so, I’m 
partly responsible, too; he overheard me 
talking to Bobs about it, and that in- 
fluenced him, you see.” 

“ But that’s no excuse for what he 
did!” 

“No; Mr. Branch doesn’t excuse him, 
but he says Clarence is so much younger, 
and so easily influenced that he’s like one 
of these anarchists that get all inflamed by 
speeches they’ve heard and things they’ve 
read, and imagine they’re doing a heroic 
act when they go and shoot the President. 
You ought to have heard him lecture the 
Beta Sig fellows in the talk he gave yes- 
terday. He says Clarence actually ex- 
pected they would applaud him, and that 
it reflects great discredit on them.” 

116 


The Mass-Meeting 

“ Well, there’s something in that, isn’t 
there? But, if I were Clarence I’d sooner 
be expelled than come back to Marston 
and face the feeling there is.” 

“ He’s not coming back. His father is 
going to send him to military school. 
Louise, did you know that Bobs went to 
Mr. Branch and told him that, as far as he 
was concerned, he hoped Clarence would 
get another chance ? ” 

“No! What did Quis think of that?” 

“ Oh, Quis doesn’t like anything Bobs 
does ! Here he’s won his emblem, but he 
says it’s no thanks to Bobs ; that he never 
would have got it if Bobs hadn’t been 
locked up. I wish you’d talk to him. He’s 
so jealous of my liking any boy outside 
of his frat! This morning he accused me 
of getting the girls to give our dance on 
the same night the Beta Sigs have theirs, 
so that he’d be tied up for that evening 
and I could feel free to ask Bobs!” 

“ Foolishness ! ” 


117 


JacquettCy a Sorority Girl 

“ He doesn’t know it’s foolishness, 
though. Louise — ” Jacquette lowered her 
voice as if she knew she were uttering 
heresy — “ with Quis acting this way, and 
the Sigma Pi girls calling me disloyal every 
time I look at an old friend like Margaret 
Howland — I sometimes wish there were no 
such thing as a fraternity or sorority in 
school ! ” 

Louise turned and looked at the tired, 
flushed face. 

“ That’s a mood, honey,” she answered, 
sagely. “ I’ve had it, myself, but it 
comes back to this, every time. As long 
as there are sororities, we want to be in 
them. How would you like to go to a 
dance and be told that, because you were 
a non-sorority girl, you must stay in one 
end of the hall and not dance beyond a 
certain imaginary line on the floor.? ” 

“ They wouldn’t do it ! ” 

“ In some schools they do. Not here, 
because non-sorority girls aren’t invited. 

118 


The Mass-Meeting 


Do you know what would happen if you 
had asked a non-fraternity fellow to the 
dance? You’d dance with him and not 
another soul, all the evening. ’Tisn’t fair, 
of course, but we can’t reform the world 
all at once, so you’d better comfort your- 
self thinking how lovely you’re going to 
look in that new gown. You’ll be in 
sorority colours, won’t you? — ^your hair 
the gold and your dress the blue.” 

Jacquette smiled through her mood at 
the thought. “ I can hardly wait for Fri- 
day,” she confessed, as they parted at the 
corner. “ But Louise, you try to talk a 
little sense into Quis for me, won’t you? 
Perhaps he’ll listen to you; he thinks 
you’re the whole thing.” 

“ You mean he used to think so, before 
a certain Miss Willard came to town ! ” 
was the mischievous answer. “ Yes, I’ll do 
what I can. Good-night.” 

The week moved slowly along, and the 
Friday of the Sigma Pi dance had come. 
119 


Jacquette, a Sorority Girl 

That morning, in every classroom at 
Marston, appeared the blackboard an- 
nouncement that a mass-meeting would be 
held in the Assembly room, directly after 
school, for the presentation of football 
emblems to the team. 

Marston Assembly Hall was shaped like 
a great low half-dome, and ceiled every- 
where with varnished yellow pine. Seats 
lined the curved sides of the room, running 
down in steep tiers which left only a nar- 
row floor space in front, and, from win- 
dows behind these seats, that afternoon, 
the sunlight streamed down into the faces 
of twelve self-conscious heroes who sat in 
a stiff row of chairs — their backs against 
the yellow wall — facing the audience. 

Above their heads, plastered all over the 
one straight side of the room, hung the 
purple, red, blue, gold, and white banners 
which had been won by Marston in former 
victories, and on the piano, which stood 
wedged in between the front row of seats 
120 


The Mass-Meeting 


and the wall, rose a stack of suit-boxes, 
each containing, as everyone knew, a hand- 
some dark blue sweater, with the white let- 
ters “ M. H.” emblazoned on its front. 

Suddenly, the boys and girls, who were 
not only packed into seats but standing on 
every available inch in the room, began to 
cheer. Tippie McGee, the “ Marston 
Mascot,” a red-headed little gamin from 
nobody knew where, who was always on 
hand for the Marston games, had been 
perched on a chair by the piano, and Bud 
Banister, as manager of the team, was an- 
nouncing, 

‘‘ An original song, composed for the 
occasion by our mascot, Tippie, without 
whom we probably never could have beaten 
Webster. The school will please join in 
the second singing.” 

All along the low step in front of the 
first tier of seats — only a few feet from the 
football hei-oes, whom they faced — sat the 
smiling Sigma Pi girls, and it was into 

in 


Jacquette, a Sorority Girl 

their eyes that Tippie looked as he began 
singing shrilly, to the tune of “ The Good 
Old Summer-time ” : 

“ In the good old football time I 
In the good old football time ! 
Strolling down by Marston field, 
You’ll see us buck the line! 

Our captain kicks a goal from field. 
And that’s a very good sign 
That Marston’s got the championship 
In the good old football time I ” 

That was all, but Patti in her palmiest 
days might have envied Tippie the warmth 
of his reception. Shrieks, whistles, ap- 
plause with hands and feet, cries of 
“ Good I Good for Tippie I ” choked the 
air, and it was long before the crowd could 
calm itself to join uproariously in the 
second singing. 

Once started, though, it could not stop. 
The second singing was followed by a third 
122 


The Mass-Meeting 

— ^the third by a fourth! Then — the pre- 
sentation. 

‘‘ Captain Robin Sidney Drake,” was 
the first name called. Bobs, arrayed in 
his best black suit, stepped forward amid 
a tremendous burst of cheering, and lis- 
tened uncomfortably to Mr. Branch’s 
eulogy on his captainship of the Marston 
eleven. But when the box containing the 
precious sweater was handed to him, his 
face beamed. Clasping it tenderly, as one 
holds a baby, he stood smiling down at it 
for a minute before he lifted his blue eyes 
to the principal’s face. Then his lips 
parted, and everyone leaned forward to lis- 
ten. 

“ It’s a — pretty big box 1 ” said Bobs, 
and no eloquence could have pleased his 
adoring schoolmates better. They screamed 
with mirth, they laughed until they cried, 
they hooted with glee, they hurrahed for 
Bobs. Not until he swung around and 
faced them with a determined air of get- 
123 


Jacquette, a Sorority Girl 

ting ready for a speech, did they subside. 
Then Bobs, still hugging the big box, 
threw back his head and addressed the gal- 
leries which did not exist. 

‘‘ Thank you ! ” he said. Just that, not 
another word, but his eyes deserted the 
imaginary galleries, and, with his own 
merry smile, he looked straight into the 
faces of the boys and girls who loved him. 
After that, he sat down. Cheer.? Of 
course they cheered! What if he couldn’t 
make a speech.? He was — Bobs. 

At last Bud’s voice was heard announc- 
ing “ the popular song entitled, ‘ Old M. 
H.’ ” Then Tippie, standing on the chair 
by the old piano, which was tinkling out 
the tune of “ Tammany,” led off, 

“Hold Hem Haitch! 

Hold Hem Haitch! 

Beat our captain if you can! 

We’ll defend him to a man ! 

Hold Hem Haitch ! ” etc. 


124 


The Mass-Meeting 

The more enthusiastic Tippie grew, the 
more he aspirated his vowels, always, and 
to-day the school, seeking an outlet for 
pent-up feelings, seized on his. 

“Hold Hem Haitch! 

Hold Hem Haitch ! ” 

they all shouted together, and not one more 
fervently than Jacquette, who, from the 
row of Sigma Pi girls, smiled straight into 
Bobs’s face, as she sang 

“ Beat our captain if you can ! 

We’ll defend him to a man!” 

Then, suddenly, she felt Quis looking 
coldly at her, and, in spite of all she could 
do, her voice weakened and her eyes fell. 
A cloud had come over her gladness. 

The meeting went on. One after an- 
other, the members of the team stood up, 
received their sweaters, acknowledged them 
125 


Jacquette, a Sorority Girl 

properly, were duly cheered, and sat down. 
Marquis was last, the only substitute to 
win an “ M. H.” that year, and his little 
speech of appreciation, as Mr. Branch 
handed him the box, was perfectly turned. 
Jacquette was proud of his appearance, 
but she felt, through and through, the 
contrast between his reception and the one 
given to Bobs. 

Marquis was admired; Bobs was loved. 
As the mass-meeting broke up, with the 
boys all crowding around their captain, 
she realised, with a sense of girlish elation, 
that she — Jacquette Willard — was going 
to her first dance, that night, with the hero 
of Marston High! 

From that moment until the evening was 
done, she forgot Marquis’s displeasure and 
lived in a fairy tale. Her feet scarcely 
staid on the floor while she dressed for the 
dance. The filmy blue gown, the white 
slippers, the long white gloves, even the 
sparkle of her own eyes and the glint of 
126 


The Mass-Meeting 

gold in her hair, as she saw herself in the 
mirror — all seemed new and bewitching. 

‘‘ Tia ! Tia ! Am I really that girl in 
the glass, or is she a dream ? ” she cried, 
the roses deepening in her cheeks, as she 
caught her little aunt in her arms, just 
before she started. Then she found her- 
self leaning back against the cushions of 
the carriage, and she turned a wondering 
glance on Louise, who sat beside her utter- 
ing commonplaces to Bobs and Ned, as if 
this were everyday life. After all, a girl 
needed to have grown up in Brookdale, 
Jacquette reflected, to understand the 
thrill of grandeur she had felt when that 
carriage door slammed. 

She had the same thought again, a little 
later, when they all stepped out into the 
carpeted, covered way that led from the 
carriage to the entrance of the Lakeside 
Club. And, while she was thinking it, she 
entered into a fairyland of lights, of 
music, of gaiety, of excitement. 

127 


CHAPTER VII 


THE “ FOOL-KILLER ” 

A S soon as Jacquette opened her eyes, 
next morning, she closed them 
again, and tried to bring back the 
glittering scene of the evening before. 
Bobs had proved a perfect cavalier, as 
good a dancer as quarterback, and two 
o’clock had come before anyone remem- 
bered time. Yes, she could see the bril- 
liant hall, the blue and gold decorations, 
the huge copy of the Sigma Pi pin done 
in electric lights on the wall just over the 
orchestra, the richly dressed mothers of 
two of the girls presiding at frappe, as 
chaperones of the occasion ; she even heard 
strains of music, and carriage numbers be- 
ing called, as they came out into the frosty 
air — but, all the time, she knew that it was 
128 


The ‘‘ Fool-Kilter 


past, and that nothing was left to happen. 
For weeks she had been looking forward 
to this dance. Now that it was over, the 
year stretched ahead in grey monotony. 

After a few days, however, she awoke 
to the fact that another event, fully as 
exciting, though very different in nature, 
was looming in the near future. Two of 
her teachers warned her that she would 
have to do better work if she hoped to get 
through her half-yearly examinations in 
January. 

Jacquette heard them in shocked aston- 
ishment. In Brookdale she had been the 
star of all her classes. It seemed unbe- 
lievable that she could be facing utter 
failure; yet the semi-final examinations, 
she knew, counted as much in the year’s 
standing as the dreaded June finals them- 
selves. 

As she started for home that day, she 
was wondering, with a sick dread, how Tia 
would feel when she told her, and whether, 
129 


Jacquette, a Sorority Girl 

if she really should fail, the Sigma Pi 
girls would carry out that dreadful threat 
of taking away her pin. At least, she made 
up her mind, if hard study from now on 
could avert the calamity, it should never 
•come, and she began her campaign by 
resolutely refusing to join in a special 
frolic which was coming oflF in the sorority 
rooms that afternoon. 

Her grandfather and Aunt Sula were 
both out, when she reached home ; so Jac- 
quette had the library to herself, and she 
set at work with a will. 

Half an hour passed. Then she saw 
Rodney Fletcher, a grammar school boy, 
dashing across the street to her door. 

“Give me shelter. Miss Willard.'^” he 
asked, breathlessly. “ You know I’m com- 
ing up to high school in February, and the 
Beta Sigs and the Elks are both trying to 
pledge me now, so as to be sure of me 
when I get there. The Elks are bound to 
clinch the thing to-day, but I don’t want 
130 


The “ Fool-Killer ” 


to give them an answer till I see what the 
Beta Sigs are going to do, and they’ve 
asked me down to their f rat house to-night. 
I’ve skipped out, so my mother can tell the 
Elk boys I’m not at home. Oh, look! 
They’re coming over here. Hide me some- 
where 1 ” 

While he was speaking, Jacquette, en- 
tering into the fun, had hurried him into 
the dining-room, and had drawn the heavy 
curtains. 

“ Don’t give me away, now ! On your 
honour,” was his parting injunction, as 
she turned to admit the delegation of Elks 
— but the whole affair took a different col- 
our, a minute later, when the first Elk to 
walk in was Bobs Drake ! 

Playing a joke on Bobs was the last 
thing she had thought of. She had never 
before known him to take an active part in 
fraternity contentions; yet here he was, 
and there, in the dining-room, was Rod- 
ney, trusting her to keep him hidden. 

131 


Jacquette, a Sorority Girl 

There was nothing to do but to carry it 
through, and explain to Bobs, afterward. 

“ We just stopped to ask if you’d seen 
Rod Fletcher to-day ? ” he was saying, as 
she reached this decision. 

“ Why, yes ; he was here a little while 
ago,” she answered, cautiously. 

“ We can’t get track of him,” put in 
another boy. “ His mother says she 
doesn’t know where he is.” 

“Does she? Well, he isn’t at home, 
then. Mrs. Fletcher would tell you if he 
were,” Jacquette assured them, beginning 
to enjoy the joke for its own sake, and 
feeling certain that Bobs was going to 
understand, later on. 

“We won’t stay. I see you’re study- 
ing,” Bobs said, considerately. “ But 
we’d appreciate it if you’d put in a good 
word for the Elks with Rodney. We don’t 
want the Beta Sigs to get him, because he’s 
worth having.” 

“ I’m sorry, Bobs,” she answered, de- 
132 


The “ Fool-Killer ” 


cidedly, “ but I’ve promised Aunt Sula 
that I won’t take sides with any fraternity. 
Besides, I doubt if Rodney would be in- 
fluenced by anything I could say.” 

She had followed the boys to the door 
while she spoke, and, as they went down 
the walk, she heard them rallying Bobs on 
his failure to secure her as an ally. That 
bothered her, and she found it hard to get 
back into the spirit of study after Rod- 
ney had gone. 

Next morning at school, the first thing 
she heard was that the Beta Sigmas had 
pledged Rodney at their fraternity house 
the night before, and this, coupled with 
the disturbing fact that Bobs was missing 
from school, altogether, for the next three 
days, had a demoralising effect on Jac- 
quette’s good resolutions about work. 

On the fourth morning she stopped 
Louise in the hall between bells to say, 

‘‘ Wait a minute, Louise. Tell me what 
you know about Bobs? I saw him going 
133 


Jacquette, a Sorority Girl 

upstairs, just now, but he wouldn’t give 
me a chance to speak to him, even, and I 
don’t understand why. Is it true that 
he’s not coming back to school? ” 

There had been disturbing rumours 
about Bobs. He was quoted as having said 
that there was no special ob j ect in finishing 
his senior year, now that the football sea- 
son was over. With his record as quarter- 
back to help him, the boys said, he could 
easily get into college on the work he had 
already done. Yet now, on the day before 
the Christmas vacation, he had appeared 
again, and seemed to be attending his 
classes, as usual. 

“ Hush ! ” Louise answered. “ Some- 
thing dreadful happened in chemistry 
class, and Bobs has gone to the office, now. 
I can’t stop, but I’ll tell you all about it 
at noon.” 

“ Gone to the office,” meant an interview 
with the principal, and, all through her 
French recitation, Jacquette was wonder- 
134 


The “ Fool-Killer ” 


ing what Bobs could have done. Over and 
over again, Mademoiselle’s searching eyes 
and sudden questions brought her back to 
the subject, but, when the bell finally rang, 
the amount of French she had absorbed 
was very slight. 

Then she and Louise flew together like 
magnet and needle. “ Never mind lunch- 
eon ! ” said J acquette. ‘‘ Let’s walk down 
the street where we can be alone. Now, 
tell me!” 

“ ’Twas just this,” Louise began obe- 
diently. “ Some of the boys have been 
getting up an illustrated magazine called 
the ‘Fool-killer’ — ^just one copy, you 
know, on fine paper, pen and ink work, 
with illuminated initials — an awfully clever 
thing. It has caricatures of all the fac- 
ulty, representing the teachers as saying 
ridiculous things against secret societies 
in high schools, and so on. The boys 
meant to circulate it by passing it around 
under desks until all the pupils had seen 
135 


Jacquette, a Sorority Girl 

it. So, this morning, just as Mr. Talbot 
called the chemistry class to order, the 
magazine was handed to Bobs Drake, and, 
after a minute, he passed it over to me, 
opened at a killing picture of Mr. Talbot, 
talking against football with one side of 
his mouth and against fraternities with 
the other. I don’t believe Mr. Talbot 
would have noticed Bobs handing me the 
magazine, but, Jacquette, you know my 
failing. The minute I saw that picture, 
off went my laugh — right there in class! 
I hadn’t the slightest warning that it was 
going to happen. Never do have, you 
know.” 

“ Louise — you poor girl 1 ” 

“ Well, Mr. Talbot was down at my 
desk in a flash, and, before I could do a 
thing, he had the ‘ Fool-killer’ in his hand, 
looking it through. Wasn’t it dreadful? 
There he stood, turning page after page, 
and we waited. At last he looked up at 
Quis, and said, ‘ Mr. Granville, do you hap- 
136 


The “ Fool-Killer ” 


pen to know who executed this master- 
piece ? ’ ” 

“ Oh ! Quis could have done it — ^but he 
wouldn’t ! ” 

“ Well, there were two or three Beta 
Sigs sitting near Quis, and they sat up 
straight, but Quis held his head high, and 
said, ‘ Yes, sir, I do know.’ ” 

“ No!” 

“ Yes. Mr. Talbot was surprised, too. 
Of course his next question was, ‘ Who did 
it?’ but Quis absolutely refused to an- 
swer. Then Mr. Talbot asked why he 
wouldn’t answer, and Quis gave one glance 
over at the Elk boys, where Bobs was sit- 
ting, and said, ‘ Because I consider it dis- 
honourable to tell tales of anyone 1 ’ And, 
Jacquette, the class cheered ! ” 

“ But, Louise, you aren’t going to say 
Bobs did it ? ” 

‘‘ Wait till I get to that. Of course 
Mr. Talbot was angry at the cheering, 
and, next thing, turned on Bobs.” 

137 


Jacquette, a Sorority Girl 
“ Well? ” 

“ Bobs wouldn’t answer, either, but he 
did look at Quis as much as to accuse him 
of having given him away, I thought. We 
all expected it would end in Mr. Talbot’s 
sending them both to the office, but, in- 
stead, he went back to his desk and began 
the recitation. I guess he didn’t know that 
Quis was starting for New York, right 
after class, for he let him get away while 
he was talking to Bobs, and the end 
of it is that Bobs has gone to the office 
alone.” 

“ And you think Bobs got up the maga- 
zine, and Quis knows, and won’t tell? ” 

“ I — don’t know. You see, it stands 
against Bobs that he’s been out of school 
for several days doing no one knows what. 
There’s so much fine lettering in the maga- 
zine; it would take a great deal of time. 
And everyone knows how clever Bobs is 
at drawing, and how he loves a joke. I’m 
afraid.” 


138 


The “ Fool-Killer ” 


“ And I don’t believe it ! If Bobs had 
done it, he’d have owned up.” 

“ But you don’t stop to think, Jac- 
quette, that owning up would have meant 
bringing discredit on his whole fraternity. 
The Beta Sigs would crow so if the Elks 
got into disgrace. It isn’t a bit like own- 
ing up alone.” 

“ I know ; but I don’t believe it. If I 
could only get hold of Quis, I’d make him 
tell who did it. He said he knew. But his 
train has started by now.” 

“ Yes, and you mustn’t worry, dear. I 
dare say Bobs will come out of it all right. 
Everybody likes him so — teachers and all. 
I’m terribly sorry I laughed, but I just 
can’t go without my luncheon on account 
of it. I’m starving. Come and get a sand- 
wich. You’ll feel better.” 

“ No. I can’t eat a thing! ” And Jac- 
quette, starting back toward the school 
alone, turned the comer and met Bobs face 
to face. 


139 


Jacquette, a Sorority Girl 

He would have passed, but she insisted 
on speaking and almost with the first words 
it came out that he had seen Rodney leav- 
ing her house, just after he and the other 
boys had been dismissed that day, and that 
his faith in girls had vanished with the 
sight. Of course the fellows had joked 
him, but that was the least of it. The part 
he could not get over was that he had be- 
lieved Jacquette to be “ square,” and now 
she had proved herself “ just like all the 
girls — tricky ! ” 

Jacquette’s explanation had waited so 
long that the words of it tumbled over each 
other. She looked very sweet and sorry, 
standing there, her face flushed with feel- 
ing, and, as she talked, the winter wind 
caught one of her curly yellow braids and 
tossed it over her shoulder. Bobs remem- 
bered, suddenly, that she had put her hair 
down in braids the day after he had said 
sorority girls were in too much of a hurry 
to be grown-up. He stamped the snow 
140 


The “ Fool-Killer ” 


from his feet, irresolute — trying not to 
forgive her. Then he looked straight into 
her honest eyes, and, turning, walked back 
to the school at her side. 

“ I see how it was. Jack, and I’d like to 
shake hands on it,” he said, as they reached 
the entrance. “ I don’t know when I’ll see 
you again ; I may not come back to school 
any more after vacation. I tried to quit, 
right after this Rodney Fletcher business, 
but my mother cried about it ; so I couldn’t. 
You know I haven’t any father to make me 
do things, but when my mother cries it’s 
the same thing. So I started in again, but 
now there’s a new trouble, and I don’t know 
what may come of it. I’m on my way 
home, in disgrace for refusing to answer 
questions in the office.” 

“ I know what you mean ; Louise told 
me,” Jacquette answered, giving him her 
hand, and I just want to say that I 
don’t believe, for one minute, you ever 
did it.” 


141 


Jacquette, a Sorority Girl 

Bobs looked at her with an expression 
that she could not understand. Then, in- 
stead of saying, as she had hoped he would, 
that he had not done it, he merely re- 
peated, “ You don’t believe it.f* I’m glad.” 

All the way upstairs to Mademoiselle’s 
room, Jacquette was asking herself what 
Bobs had meant by that response, and the 
question was still troubling her when the 
closing hour came that afternoon, and 
Mademoiselle began to distribute the 
monthly report cards among the pupils in 
her study room. 

Jacquette walked to the desk slowly, 
dreading to see hers, and she was not sur- 
prised when Mademoiselle, in passing it 
out, looked at her reproachfully. 

“ My little Willard, I am sorry,” she 
said, gravely. “ Will you stay and talk 
with me after school, honey ” 

Jacquette scanned the figures on the 
card as she took her seat. She had fallen 
below, for the month, in algebra and 
142 


The “ Fool-Killer ’’ 


physiography, and her standing, even in 
English and French, was near the danger 
mark. 

“ Sorry for you, dear,” Blanche Gross 
whispered, as the pupils rose to file out of 
the room. “ Come up to the sorority rooms 
when Mademoiselle’s done with you, and 
tell us all about it.” 

When Jacquette lifted her eyes, she 
found herself alone with Mademoiselle. 

“ Come and sit here by me, dearie,” be- 
gan the French teacher, with one of those 
searching glances from under her dark 
eyebrows. “ That is right. Now, chicken, 
you were meant to be a good little child. 
What can be the trouble ? ” 

Her manner was gentleness itself, but it 
compelled an answer, and before Jacquette 
realised what she was doing, she found her- 
self pouring out her troubles. 

‘‘ I know, honey, I know ! ” Mademoiselle 
said, at the end. “ I, too, have seen this 
wonderful ‘Fool-killer.’ There is one page 
143 


Jacquette, a Sorority Girl 

with a very dreadful picture of a French 
lady who says ‘ lambkin ’ to the big boys ! ” 
She shrugged her shoulders ever so little. 
“ That is mere fun ! The part that worries 
me is, why did he not own up like a man 
when he was questioned ? ” 

“ Oh, Mademoiselle ! ” Jacquette re- 
proached her. “ You think he did it ! ” 

“ There is not one particle of doubt, my 
child. When he was in my French class, 
in this very room, two years ago, I took 
from him this same picture of the French 
lady saying ‘ lambkin.’ No one else could 
have reproduced it so perfectly. But he 
was never a sneak in those days, and I can- 
not believe now, that he realises how his 
refusal to confess turns suspicion upon an 
innocent party.” 

“What innocent party Not Quis.? 
Does anyone think Quis did it? ” 

Mademoiselle stared blankly. “ Dearie ! ” 
she said at last. “ Honey ! My little Wil- 
lard! Your cousin Marquis did it!” 

144 


The “ Fool-Killer 


‘‘ Quis did it ! And then took credit for 
keeping still because it would be dishon- 
ourable to tell! And let the class cheer 
him — and made Bobs all this trouble. 
Mademoiselle! he couldn’t! He has too 
much conscience.” 

“ Conscience ; ah, but he was not using 
Marquis Granville’s conscience when he did 
this. He was governed by his fraternity 
conscience — a vastly different thing from 
the individual conscience, dearie. What- 
ever happened, he must not bring discredit 
on his Beta Sigma fraternity, don’t you 
see.? I, myself, know one dear little child 
with golden braids who has been writing 
English themes for another member of her 
sorority, just because she has the mistaken 
idea that her vow of sisterhood requires 
that dishonest act. But she was governed 
by her sorority conscience when she did it.” 

Jacquette flushed scarlet. She had not 
dreamed that anyone outside of the so- 
rority knew how much she was helping 
145 


Jacquette, a Sorority Girl 

Mamie Coolidge with her English. “ Made- 
moiselle, you know every single thing we 
do ! ” she exclaimed. 

“ Not everything, honey, but more than 
you guess. You can fool the pretty, 
young teachers, but the little old French 
ladies with green eyes, they know — they 
know! ” She shook her head solemnly, but 
the dimples came in her cheeks, and her 
eyes twinkled. 

“ You’re not old, and your eyes aren’t 
green ! ” J acquette cried, impulsively. 
“You’re perfectly darling! And oh — I 
do believe you’re right about Quis. I see 
it all.” 

“ There’s no doubt of it, my chicken,” 
Mademoiselle concluded, beginning to put 
away the books and papers on her desk. 
“ Now you are to dismiss from your mind 
all the little Quisses and all the little 
Bobses, and not worry about them any 
more. I, myself, will w^rite to that dear 
little wretch in New York. You shall give 
146 


The “ Fool-Killer 


me his address. He will be sorry, for I 
know he has not meant to make so much 
trouble, and he will confess at once. You 
will see. 

“ F or you, my sweet pet, it is certainly 
trouble enough that you must take home 
to dear auntie this abominable report card. 
But yet, remember, that is in the past. 
Your scholarship for the month of De- 
cember has been sacrificed, honey ; laid on 
the altar of — what.?’ Shall we say, of a 
Sigma Pi Epsilon dance.? Think it over, 
dearie, and see if I am right. And study 
a few hours every day in the Christmas va- 
cation to make up back work. Then start 
again with the new year, pass your semi- 
final examinations, and begin the next half, 
in February, with the spirit of work. That 
is all, honey. You may go.” 


147 


CHAPTER VIII 


FEBRUARY RUSHING 

M ademoiselle was a prophet. 

Her letter to Marquis brought 
back a prompt reply, addressed 
to the principal of the Marston Pligh 
School, and confessing that the “ Fool- 
killer,” though it had been executed in the 
Beta Sigma fraternity house, was every 
stroke his work and entirely his fault. He 
offered an apology to every teacher cari- 
catured, both for the personal affront and 
for his own error as regarded influence and 
example, and explained that, when he had 
refused to answer Mr. Talbot on the 
ground that it was dishonourable to tell 
tales, he had been led by a desire to amuse 
his Beta Sigma brothers — ^not in the least 
by a wish to turn suspicion on any other 
148 


February Rushing 


person. In fact, though he was ashamed 
to confess it, he had not once thought of 
that as a consequence of his act, until he 
had received Mademoiselle’s letter. 

The communication was frank and 
manly ; Marquis Granville was president of 
the class which would be graduated from 
Marston in June; his record as a student 
had been exceptionally brilliant up to this 
time ; and he was the son of a wealthy, in- 
fluential citizen. One or all of these rea- 
sons may have worked in his behalf. At 
any rate, when he came back to school 
after the holidays, the matter had been 
hushed, and he and Bobs were both found 
in their old places. 

Meanwhile, the Christmas holiday had 
been a merry, busy time for Jacquette. 
There had been numerous sorority engage- 
ments, the most important of which was 
the annual luncheon, given at one of the 
fashionable hotels for the entertainment of 
out-of-town chapters of Sigma Pi ; but she 
149 


Jacquette, a Sorority Girl 

had firmly declined invitations to three 
alluring fraternity dances, and had, not 
only saved some hours for study, but had 
gladdened the hearts of her grandfather 
and Aunt Sula by finding time to show a 
little of the old Brookdale interest in the 
home Christmas celebration. 

She had tried, too, to take Made- 
moiselle’s advice about putting “ the little 
Quisses and Bobses ” out of her thoughts, 
and she came back to school in January 
with her face set in the right direction. All 
that month she studied hard, doing the best 
work of her year, and, when the semi-finals 
came, her marks averaged high enough to 
pass her in everything. They were not 
marks to be vain over, but at least they 
gave her the chance to go on and do better 
in the coming half. 

Then came February, with its influx of 
new girls from grammar-school. 

“ You’ll have to be easy with me this 
month, Tia,” Jacquette said, as she was 
150 


February Rushing 

starting for school one morning in the first 
week of the new half. “ February is the 
great rush time of the whole year for so- 
rorities ; even more so than September. 
You see, the girls that get through gram- 
mar school in February instead of June 
are the brightest ones. That’s the reason 
we go after them so hard. Of course I’m 
remembering our bargain, and I’m not go- 
ing to let Sigma Pi interfere with my 
studies — not if I have to sit up all night 
to do them — but you mustn’t expect me 
home right after school for awhile, because 
there’ll be spreads and pledging and all 
kinds of things going on, every after- 
noon.” 

“ It won’t be keeping the bargain, 
though, if you have to ‘ sit up all night ’ 
to do lessons,” Aunt Sula reminded. 

“ I know ; I didn’t mean quite all 
night!” Jacquette laughed, coaxingly. 

And truly, Tia, it’s a very special time, 
different from all the rest of the year. 

151 


Jacquette, a Sorority Girl 

Explain it to grandpa, please, so he won’t 
worry. Oh, by the way,” she called over 
her shoulder, as she hurried down the walk, 
“ the girls were crazy over those sand- 
wiches I made for the spread yesterday. 
They want me to bring thirty more just 
like them, Friday.” 

Aunt Sula smiled, and sighed, as she 
closed the door ; but she would have sighed 
without the smile if she could have looked 
into one of the halls at Marston, a half 
hour later, where two semi-circles of ex- 
cited, angry girls were lined up opposite 
each other, each with a spokesman in the 
centre of its group. 

Blanche Gross was acting for Sigma Pi, 
with Jacquette Willard close at her elbow, 
while on the other side, Margaret How- 
land was peeping over the shoulder of 
Bertha Maxwell, the Kappa Delta leader. 

The quarrel was about the new girl who 
had been pledged Sigma Pi the day before. 

“We understand you stooped so low as 
152 


February Rushing 


to go out to Winifred’s house, last night, 
and actually try to get her mother to make 
her take off her Sigma Pi ribbons ! ” 
Blanche was saying, hotly. 

“ We certainly did talk to her mother,” 
Bertha Maxwell answered for the Kappa 
Deltas. “ We intend that Winifred Pierce 
and her mother shall have their eyes open 
about Marston sororities. It’s not fair to 
take possession of a girl and overwhelm 
her without giving her a chance to see 
other sororities and make up her own mind. 
We want Winifred to come to our spread 
this afternoon and meet our girls, and her 
mother said she could do it, too.” 

“ Well, we say she can’t, and what we 
say about our pledges counts just a little 
more than what their mothers say, you’ll 
soon find out ! ” 

Oh, does it ! That will sound so pleas- 
ant to her mother ! ” 

“ Go and tell her ! Hurry ! Take the 
first car! We’ve understood, before now, 


153 


Jacquette, a Sorority Girl 

that Kappa Delta made a specialty of tell- 
ing tales.” 

‘‘ Go right on, Blanche Gross ! ” Bertha 
flung back. “ You can’t trust your pledge 
to stay with you if she finds out about 
other sororities, that’s the trouble ! ” 

“No such thing! We’d trust her any- 
w'here, but ” 

“ Never mind ! ” Bertha broke in, tragi- 
cally. “Remember one thing: By fair 
means or foul, we’ll have your pledge at 
our spread, this afternoon — see if we 
don’t!” 

A door opened. “ My little children — 
my little children ! ” said the soft voice of 
Mademoiselle Dubois. “ Tardy ! — every 
one of you ! Scamper, pets ! ” 

The girls scattered. It was an incon- 
gruous sight, these tall, well-dressed young 
ladies, quarrelling like children. As they 
separated, with resentful glances at one 
another, Bertha drew Margaret’s arm 
through hers, but Margaret looked back 
154 


February Rushing 


over her shoulder with a half ashamed ex- 
pression, and Jacquette, meeting her eyes, 
remembered their happy friendship in 
Brookdale, and felt suddenly foolish. 

As she turned to go into the cloak-room. 
Mademoiselle spoke to her. “ My little 
Willard,” she said, “ in this school there 
are twenty-five teachers, all trying to pump 
knowledge of various kinds into the heads 
of a thousand or more little children. This 
is called getting a high-school education, 
but I ask you, honey, if these little heads 
are quite, quite full of something else, how 
can the knowledge be put in.? ” 

Jacquette felt the force of this appeal, 
but, none the less, her strongest feeling, as 
she took her seat, was lively curiosity to 
know just what was being done to protect 
that Sigma Pi pledge from the Kappa 
Deltas. 

At the beginning of second hour, she 
hurried into the hall and met Mamie 
Coolidge, who had all the news and told it 
155 


Jacquette, a Sorority Girl 

eagerly. One of the Sigma Pi girls, she 
said, had gone to the principal and had him 
excuse her from the first two hours of 
school, on the plea that she must attend to 
some necessary business, and two more of 
the girls had secured the same kind of an 
excuse from their room teachers. Then 
they had gone out to the comer drug- 
store and had telephoned, not only to 
Winifred’s mother, warning her against 
the dishonourable Kappa Deltas, but to 
some of the Sigma Pi alumnae, and to cer- 
tain mothers of Sigma Pi girls, who might 
do something during the day to influence 
Mrs. Pierce in favour of Sigma Pi. 

“ Did the girls cut two hours of school 
to do that telephoning ” Jacquette asked, 
uneasily. 

“ Oh, yes ; ’twas nothing but study hours 
for any of them,” Mamie answered, care- 
lessly. “ They didn’t miss any recitations, 
at all. Mercy, that’s the least they could 
do for Sigma Pi, if they’re loyal, I should 
156 


February Rushing 


say! Oh, and Jacquette, Mrs. Pierce 
promised that Winifred shouldn’t go to the 
Kappa Belt spread, and the girls have de- 
cided to have a special initiation to-mor- 
row and take her in right away, just to 
show the Kappa Belts. That is, they want 
to if the rest of you agree. Blanche and 
Etta are planning it now. It’s study 
period for them; so they can.” 

That was all Jacquette had time to hear, 
and she was late at her algebra class, as 
it was. 

After school, the Sigma Pi girls met, 
and parcelled out the work for the initia- 
tion, next day. Blanche Gross offered her 
entire house, because her family was away, 
and Jacquette, besides bringing a cake, 
was appointed to act on the committee es- 
corting Winifred to the place of her initia- 
tion. Accordingly at half-past nine the 
next morning, she went over to Mamie 
Coolidge’s, where Winifred had been sum- 
moned to appear. 


157 


Jacquettcy a Sorority Girl 

Blanche lived only a few blocks from 
Mamie’s home, but, as Winifred must be 
made to believe that her initiation would 
be in some mysterious quarter out at the 
north end of the city, it was necessary to 
blindfold her and give her a long street-car 
ride. So Mamie Coolidge and Flo Bur- 
ton, both freshmen and both irrepressible 
romps, were decking her for the journey, 
as Jacquette came in. 

They had braided her black hair in seven 
tight pigtails, each of which was so stiffly 
wired that they had been able to make it 
stand out in wonderful spiral twists, giving 
a Medusa effect that was quite startling. 
On the top of her head they had pinned 
a thimble-like opera bonnet of a fashion 
long gone by, and, for dress, she had on 
a long, bedraggled white petticoat, topped 
by a man’s black coat, the tails of which 
were pinned up across the back in two 
large pockets. These pockets were filled 
with faded roses and ferns, and Winifred 
158 


February Rushing 

was to carry in both hands a large bunch 
of wilted carnations. 

The finishing touch was the bandage 
over her eyes. It was a red bandana, pad- 
ded with cotton, to prevent a single ray of 
light from getting in. 

Jacquette had never seen a Sigma Pi 
pledge taken out on the street looking quite 
so much like a scarecrow, and, before they 
started, she took Mamie and Flo aside to 
remonstrate. But they declared, with 
giggles of delight, that they had received 
instructions from headquarters, and 
weren’t going to have them interfered with 
by a freshman. So the party set out. 

As they were going down the front 
steps, Winifred stumbled and nearly fell 
headlong. “ Now, girls ! ” Jacquette ex- 
claimed, speaking out before the pledge in 
forgetfulness of sorority rules. “ You 
can’t take Winifred on the car with her 
eyes bandaged like that. It’s dangerous. 
It wouldn’t do a bit of harm to loosen it 
159 


Jacquette, a Sorority Girl 

just enough so that she could see the 
ground she’s walking on.” 

“ It certainly would do harm, for it’s 
against orders ! ” Flo Burton insisted, in 
her most important manner, and, as she 
spoke, she took Winifred by the arm and 
turned her around several times. “Now, 
Winifred, follow my voice,” she said. 

Flo was chairman of the committee, and 
evidently meant to have that fact remem- 
bered, but there was one thing Jacquette 
could do, and that was to keep a close hold 
of Winifred’s hand. She did this faith- 
fully, telling her when to step up and 
down, and which way to turn, until at last, 
with a sigh of relief, she seated her safely 
in the car. 

Most of the people who saw them get 
on, laughed at poor Winifred’s plight. A 
few looked disgusted; everyone stared. 
Two rakish-looking fellows took advan- 
tage of the general merriment to attempt 
a flirtation with Jacquette, who sat as close 
160 



So Mamie and Flo were decl'ing her for the journey 



««» 


.1 




•• » 


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I 



h 


I 


"V- 




d 


February Rushing 

to Winifred as she could without coming 
in contact with the spiky braids which 
stuck out dangerously in all directions. 

The party rode to the end of the line 
and got oflF without mishap. Winifred was 
marched a little way in several directions, 
turned round and round till she was 
dizzy, to the amusement of a group of 
spectators who had stopped to watch the 
unusual sight, and then bundled on to the 
homeward car, thoroughly convinced that 
she was bound for the outskirts of the 
city. 

As they started back again, Jacquette, 
still sitting by Winifred, caught a few 
words of what Flo and Mamie were saying 
in their seat across the aisle. They were 
discussing a spicy, original plan for the 
afternoon initiation, and they mentioned 
the name of a senior Sigma Pi who, Mamie 
was sure, would help them carry it through. 

Jacquette knew enough of initiation 
methods to guess pretty correctly at the 
161 


Jacquette, a Sorority Girl 

part she missed hearing, and into her 
thoughts, as the car rolled along, came 
that clause in her bargain with Aunt Sula, 
‘‘ Nothing that could offend the delicacy 
of a sensitive, modest girl.” 

Only lately, Louise and some of the 
other seniors had finished revising the 
Sigma Pi constitution so that there was 
nothing, now, in the written ceremony, 
which violated this condition, but it was 
evident that the girls intended to intro- 
duce their “ stunt ” as a surprise, and put 
it through before anyone had time to 
object. 

At last, cautioning Winifred not to 
move until she came back, Jacquette 
slipped into the vacant seat in front of the 
other girls, and said, 

“ I couldn’t help hearing, girls, and I 
just want to say, I wish you wouldn’t. It 
seems to me it’s cruel — and not very 
modest.” 

“There you go, Jacquette Willard!” 

162 


February Rushing 

Flo answered in an exasperated undertone. 
“ You’re nothing but a freshman, your- 
self, but you try to run the whole sorority. 
We know who’s been putting Louise Mark- 
ham up to spoil the Sigma Pi initiation ! 
It’s the tamest one in school, I do believe. 
A person might as well join a church and 
have done with it! It just makes me wish 
I’d gone some other sorority, where the 
girls believe in having a little fun!” 

“ But Flo,” Jacquette protested, de- 
termined to keep her temper, ‘‘ Winifred’s 
so young, you know — only fourteen ! And 
her mother asked us especially to give her 
an easy time, because she’s so delicate. Her 
hands are cold as ice, now, and her heart’s 
going like a trip-hammer.” 

“ Pooh ! What of it ? ” Flo retorted, 
and Mamie added, “ What’s an initiation 
good for, Jacquette, if it doesn’t frighten 
them.? You’re too soft-hearted, that’s the 
trouble with you.” 

Jacquette had intended to leave Wini- 
163 


Jacquette, a Sorority Girl 

fred for only a minute, but the discussion 
held her, and block after block flew past 
while they sat there arguing. Suddenly, 
they all realised, with a start, that the car 
was stopping at their comer. Jacquette 
sprang to help Winifred, and the other 
girls followed in a rush, but they were late, 
and the conductor, either not noticing, or 
not caring, that Winifred was blindfolded, 
started the car with a jerk before she was 
off the step. 

She might have fallen, anyway, for her 
foot had caught in the torn ruffle of the 
long white petticoat, but, with the sudden 
start, she lost her balance, pitched for- 
ward, plunging through Jacquette’s arms 
as if they had been paper, and fell, face 
downward, with her head almost under the 
wheels of a passing wagon. 

There were shouts from the passengers; 
the car stopped again, and nearly every- 
one jumped off to crowd around the spot 
where Winifred lay. Jacquette was down 
164 


February Rushing 

on the ground, trying, with shaking 
fingers, to untie the bandage that blinded 
Winifred’s eyes, and shuddering at sight 
of the blood that flowed from a cut on the 
poor girl’s cheek. Winifred was not un- 
conscious, for she had groaned when they 
turned her, and had cried out, 

“ Oh, my knee ! It’s my knee, girls ! ” 
The conductor was blustering about the 
idiocy of parents who allowed their daugh- 
ters to do such things, when suddenly, a 
stout, sandy-whiskered man who had been 
engrossed with his newspaper in the rear 
car, came pushing through the crowd, and 
stopped in blank horror at sight of the 
grotesque little figure stretched out on the 
ground. 

“Winifred!” he ejaculated, and Wini- 
fred — her eyes uncovered, now, her face 
bruised, her queer little bonnet tumbled off 
and trampled on, but her dreadful Medusa 
braids still rampant — reached out her hand 
to him, and answered piteously, 

165 


Jacqwette, a Sorority Girl 

Oh, papa ! Where did you come 
from? Were you on this car? Don’t 
worry, darling ! It’s only — ^my initia- 
tion ! ” 

Not one of the girls had ever seen Wini- 
fred’s father, and not one of them could 
think of a person who would have been 
less welcome at that moment. He paid 
scant attention to them, however. His 
orders were quick and sharp, and a car- 
riage was there to take Winifred home 
sooner than seemed possible. In the mean- 
time, he had been examining her injuries, 
taking the conductor’s number, and listen- 
ing, now and then, to a fragment from the 
jumble of versions offered by the pas- 
sengers who crowded about. 

When he had Winifred safely in the 
carriage, he turned to Jacquette, whose 
murmured sympathy and offers of help 
had gone unheeded. 

“ I should like your name and address, 
young lady,” he said, without noticing the 
1^6 


February Rushing 

other frightened girls who had withdrawn 
into the background as soon as he ap- 
peared, and, when Jacquette had told him 
who she was, he added, with suppressed 
indignation, “ I will take care of my 
daughter, now. As for you, I advise you 
to go on to the initiation you were plan- 
ning, and tell your society that Winifred 
Pierce will never become a member of it as 
long as she has a father to take care of 
her.” 

“ Papa ! No! ” came a pleading voice 
from the carriage, but her father stepped 
in and slammed the door, and they drove 
away. 

Twenty minutes later, three dejected- 
looking girls presented themselves in the 
library at Blanche Gross’s house, and told 
their story. 

In spite of the impromptu character of 
the initiation planned for Winifred, the 
girls had taken advantage of their unusual 
freedom in Blanche’s beautiful, empty 
167 


Jacquette, a Sorority Girl 

home, to make the ceremonies even more 
elaborate than usual. A dozen of them had 
been flying around merrily, some making 
chocolate and arranging the table in the 
dining-room, while others, in the basement, 
prepared for certain mysterious business 
which was to take place there. 

Now, they all sat, limp and speechless, 
except for broken exclamations of dismay, 
until at last, Mamie Coolidge broke the 
spell by saying. 

As far as I’m concerned, I think Wini- 
fred Pierce’s father owes us an apology! 
Everybody knows, nowadays, that you 
have a right to do anything you please at 
initiations I ” 

This was too much for Jacquette. 
Without stopping to consider whether she 
was a freshman or a senior, she began to 
speak her mind. She declared that, in her 
opinion, it was the Sigma Pi girls who 
owed the whole Pierce family an apology, 
whether it turned out that Winifred was 
168 


February Rushing 


seriously hurt or not, and, as she spoke the 
last word, Louise Markham applauded. 

But Louise was alone, and no one fol- 
lowed. All around the room were resent- 
ful faces, and, little by little, the truth 
came out. Jacquette had made herself too 
much of a leader from the start. She 
wanted to manage everybody, and she had 
an idea that the whole sorority ought to 
bow down to her ideas. They weren’t go- 
ing to stand it any longer ! 

That was the substance of the com- 
plaint, and that was how it happened that, 
long before she was expected, Jacquette 
astonished Aunt Sula by walking into the 
house, and announcing dramatically, 

“ Tia, I’m done with Sigma Pi forever ! ” 


169 


CHAPTER IX 


jacquette’s rebellion 

D one with sigma Pi ! ” Aunt Sula 
echoed, not able to believe her 
ears. 

But Jacquette, dropping into a chair 
and covering her face with both hands, 
had begun to sob. It was with an effort 
that she quieted herself to begin telling the 
troubles of the afternoon, but when she 
came to the description of the accident, 
her excitement dried her tears. 

“ And yet,” she declared, at the end, “ I 
would have stood by Sigma Pi through 
everything, Tia — you know I would — if 
the girls hadn’t all turned against me, but 
everyone of them except Louise brought 
up some criticism. They said, if I was 
going to find fault with the sororit}^, I 

170 


Jacquette's Rebellion 


might as well know that the sorority had 
fault to find with me, and that, the truth 
was, I’d acted set up ever since they were 
so easy with me about letting me keep on 
my pin after my flunk in December. Then 
Mamie Coolidge showed out her jealousy 
of Louise. She said it wasn’t sorority 
spirit for me to go so much with one girl 
to the exclusion of my other sisters. And 
Blanche Gross put in that she wouldn’t say 
anything if I’d confine my attentions to 
Sigma Pi girls, but that I’d been seen bow- 
ing to non-sorority and non-fraternity 
people around school, and that I must 
know it was against sorority principles to 
do that. 

“ Oh, how angry that made me ! I told 
her it wasn’t against my principles, and I 
wasn’t going to have my character all 
made over by any bunch of girls — ^not even 
my sorority — and that one thing I liked 
about Louise was the way she always spoke 
to everyone she knew around school, 
171 


Jacquette, a Sorority Girl 

whether they belonged to sororities or not. 
Then Flo Burton said I might insist on 
bowing to them but I surely ought not to 
chum with non-sorority girls, and that she 
\ had noticed my walking to school with 
Fannie Brewster. And when I told them 
Fannie was poor, and that you thought 
she was lonely, Flo said, in the meanest 
way, ‘ Aunt Sula, again 1 ’ and two or three 
of the girls laughed, as if they had made a 
joke of it before. 

“ Do you think I could stand that ? I 
came off and left them! And on the way 
home, I decided I’d make you happy, no 
matter how I felt myself, by telling you 
that I had done with Sigma Pi forever.” 

Jacquette had hardly stopped for 
breath since the beginning of her story, 
but now she lifted her tear-stained face to 
meet Aunt Sula’s approval. To her sur- 
prise, it was not there. 

“ What about the vows of loyalty, 
sworn for life.?*” Aunt Sula asked her. 


172 


Jacquette^s Rehellion 

‘‘ Where is the friendship that was going 
to bear criticism? This is its first test.” 

Jacquette’s eyes dropped, but her voice 
was unyielding. “ I can’t help that,” she 
murmured. The girls were mean, and 
I’ll show them there is such a thing as go- 
ing a step too far, even in a sorority. I’m 
going to call up two or three of them this 
very night, and tell them I’ve decided to 
resign.” 

In spite of her unhappiness, Jacquette 
was getting a certain solace from imagin- 
ing the effect of this announcement, but, 
before she had time to gloat over it. Aunt 
Sula astonished her still further by saying 
decidedly, 

“Jacquette, Fm not willing you should 
resign.” 

“Not willing! When you’ve always 
wished I wasn’t in it ! ” 

“ No ; I’m not. If you break these vows 
like threads, because you’re angry with 
the girls, you make it that much easier for 
173 


JacquettCy a Sorority Girl 

yourself to break other promises and be 
untrue to other obligations. No; I want 
you to promise me, here and now, ‘ on your 
honour as a Sigma Pi ’ not to say one word 
about resigning, to any of the girls — not 
even Louise — for at least a week, and not 
then until we have talked it over again.” 

But instead of answering, Jacquette, 
who had risen to her feet in her amazement, 
put both hands to her head and wavered 
backward. “ Pm so dizzy ! ” she said. 

‘‘ Lie down on the couch. There ; what 
is it.?” 

“ Oh, it’s nothing, I guess — only my 
head aches ! I’m — so — ^tired ! ” And the 
worn-out girl, completely unstrung, buried 
her face in the pillow and wept hysteric- 
ally. 

All that afternoon, Jacquette lay in a 
darkened room, resting and thinking. Just 
before dinner, Louise ran in to say how 
remorseful the girls had been as soon as 
they realised that they had hurt her. 

174 ) 


Jacquette^s Rebellion 

‘‘ It came over them all at once that they 
had gone too far,” she said. “ As soon as 
you left, they began to talk about the good 
work you had done for Sigma Pi, and, first 
we knew, it just turned into a meeting of 
praise for you. Mamie Coolidge and Flo 
Burton got one good lecture for the way 
they spoke about your aunt, and they’re 
dreadfully sorry.” 

Jacquette felt her heart softening as she 
listened. The promise to Aunt Sula had 
been given, and, on the whole, she reflected, 
it was not a bad idea to wait a week before 
she acted. 

As the evening passed, the telephone bell 
began to ring, and apologies and messages 
of love from the Sigma Pi girls came over 
the wire. It was hard to believe it, but 
Blanche Gross — proud, cold Blanche — was 
actually crying when she told Jacquette 
how sorry she was for what had happened 
at her house that day. There was news 
from Winifred, too. Some of the girls had 
175 


Jacquette, a Sorority Girl 

been to inquire, and, though her father had 
all but shut the door in their faces, they 
had learned that she was not dangerously 
injured. 

\ Then came a long, restful Sunday, and, 
by the time Jacquette started for school 
Monday morning, the world had begun to 
wear its natural colour. The sorority 
girls gathered around her effusively, and, 
when she went to her desk, she found a 
beautiful bunch of violets, bearing the 
message, “ With the love of your Sigma 
Pi sisters.” 

Up to that instant, Jacquette had been 
secretly triumphing over the way she had 
brought the girls to their knees, but those 
words on the card went through her vanity 
straight to her heart, and her eyes were 
suspiciously shiny as she turned to smile 
her thanks at two Sigma Pi sisters who 
sat near. Then she heard the voice of 
Mademoiselle, summoning her to the desk. 

‘‘ Dearie,” said the little Frenchwoman, 
176 


Jacquette*s Rebellion 

in a sorry tone, “ you are wanted in the 
office, directly.” 

“ Why, Mademoiselle ! I haven’t done 
anything!” Jacquette protested, and her 
head went up in a gesture that looked like 
defiance, though Mademoiselle, who loved 
her, knew that it was not. 

“ Wait, honey. Listen to me. Mr. 
Pierce is there with Mr. Branch and he is 
very angry about the way his little girl 
was treated on Saturday. She might have 
been crippled for life, or even killed, you 
know. It is a mercy that she was not. 
They will ask you questions, and, as I 
tell you, he is very angry. People who 
are angry do not choose their words. But 
you — will you remember one little thing.? 
This: Between the extremes of servility 
and impertinence, there lies a golden mean 
called courtesy. Go, dearie.” 

As Jacquette went up the stairs, she 
knew that Sigma Pi was in trouble. The 
message of the violets was warm in her 
177 


Jacquette, a Sorority Girl 

heart. Surely, this was no time to desert 
the girls ! Winifred Pierce’s father was 
a detestable sort of man, anyway, that was 
plain, and her head went up at the thought. 
Then she remembered Mademoiselle’s warn- 
ing. 

It was a long interview. Jacquette was 
pale when she came back to the study-room. 
She took her books and went to her algebra 
recitation without a glance at anyone. The 
Sigma Pi girls were in a flutter of anxiety, 
but there was nothing to do but wait. 

Presently, Mademoiselle was called to 
the office, herself. Then she came back 
and sat at her desk in a brown study. At 
last she looked up and asked Mamie 
Coolidge and Flo Burton to step out into 
the hall with her. 

As the door closed behind the three, she 
said, abruptly, “ My chickens, tell me who 
was with the little Pierce at the time of 
her accident, Saturday ? ” 

The girls looked at each other. Mamie 
178 


Jacquette^s Rebellion 

spoke first. “ I was, for one,” she an- 
swered. 

“ I was, too,” Flo added, reluctantly. 
“ And J acquette Willard.” 

Mademoiselle’s face cleared, but she 
shook her head. “ How it has come about 
I do not know,” she went on, gravely, “ but 
Mr. Pierce believes that the little Willard 
was the only one of you who was with his 
daughter, and he holds her accountable for 
every disgraceful detail of that trouble. 
He is very angry. He wishes to have her 
publicly reprimanded and he would be glad 
if Mr. Branch would even expel her from 
school. And she knows all about it, but 
she has not once mentioned your names ! ” 
“ Oh ! ” gasped both the girls together. 
Then something that, until now, had been 
asleep, woke within Mamie. “ Is Mr. 
Pierce in the office, yet ? ” she demanded. 
“ May we go straight up there and tell him 
all about it.? ” 

‘‘ At once, dearie,” Mademoiselle agreed, 
179 


Jacquette, a Sorority Girl 

with alacrity. “ Say to Mr. Branch that 
Mademoiselle Dubois gave you permission 
to come.” 

A minute later, two astonished men in 
the office were listening to a joint recital 
from two excited girls. Mr. Branch had 
received them sternly as they entered, his 
eye taking in the Sigma Pi pins they wore, 
with a glance of disapproval. He had been 
not only surprised, but shocked at the ac- 
count given him by Winifred’s father, and 
he was not disposed to treat the matter 
lightly. Mr. Pierce, his face flushed, his 
sandy beard bristling with indignation, had 
just risen, and was buttoning the coat of 
his light grey business suit, but he sat 
down again, and glared at the girls, while 
he listened. 

Bit by bit, in broken sentences, it all 
came out. How Jacquette had tried to 
restrain them at the start ; how anxious she 
had been to protect Winifred; how good 
her influence had always been in the so- 
180 


Jacquette's Rebellion 

rority; how she had taken all the blame 
on herself when she was perfectly inno- 
cent; how dear and sweet she was; how 

everybody loved her — oh! 

“ There ! there ! there ! ” broke in Mr. 
Pierce, his bluster all gone, as the girls be- 
gan to cry, and he actually pulled out his 
own handkerchief to polish his glasses. 
“ This puts a new light on things, I de- 
clare! Mr. Branch,” he said, turning to 
the principal, who, from behind Kis desk, 
was watching developments with keen eyes, 
“ will you let me see that Willard girl 
again, now, right away.'^ ” 

“ Certainly,” was the answer, and, step- 
ping to the door, Mr. Branch sent a mes- 
senger for Jacquette, while Mamie and 
Flo sat wondering what was going to hap- 
pen next. 

Mr. Pierce did not let them wonder long. 
As soon as Jacquette appeared in the door- 
way, he walked across the room with his 
hand outstretched. “ My girl, I want to 
181 


Jacquette, a Sorority Girl 

apologise,” he said bluntly. ‘‘ I don’t like 
your sororities, that’s true enough, and I 
won’t send my daughter to any school 
that’s in the clutch of such an octopus. As 
soon as she’s able to walk I’m going to ship 
her off to some place where secret societies 
are tabooed. But I say, Mr. Branch,” — 
still grasping Jacquette’s hand, he turned 
to the principal — “ bad as these societies 
are, they can’t be all bad, or they couldn’t 
turn out girls that would stand by each 
other like this. I want to say that there’s 
not a word of fault to be found with you,” 
he declared to Jacquette, while the colour 
rushed into her sensitive face. “ You tried 
to prevent the mischief, but you didn’t 
shirk the blame, even when you had a right 
to. You were respectful, you were sorry 
— and the way you acted has brought the 
best there was in these two girls right to 
the surface. Mr. Branch, I withdraw my 
complaint. They won’t do this thing 
again, and they’ve won that much from me 
182 


Jacquette's Rebellion 

by their loyalty to each other. As for 
you, my girl, I wish I had a son like you ! ” 

Altogether, it made an exciting story to 
tell Aunt Sula after school, and it was a 
story with a happy ending, too, for, when 
Winifred’s father had finally gone, Mr. 
Branch had dismissed the girls with noth- 
ing worse than a serious warning as to 
their manner of conducting future initia- 
tions. 

The first thing Aunt Sula said was, 
“What a friend Mademoiselle is!” 

“ Tia, she’s a wonder! She' never pries 
around to find out things; she just under- 
stands ; and she heads us away from trouble 
every chance she can get. How did she 
know I wasn’t going to be respectful to 
Mr. Pierce? But I wouldn’t have been, 
without her warning.” 

“ I’ve been wondering what she would 
think of your determination to resign 
from Sigma Pi. Suppose you ask her? ” 
183 


Jacquette, a Sorority Girl 

Jacquette’s face grew warm, but she did 
not drop her eyelids. ‘‘ I’ve been thinking 
that over, to-day,” she answered. “ Tia, 
do you realise that, in order to resign, I 
should have to let the girls expel me.'’ The 
promise is ; ‘ Once a Sigma Pi always a 
Sigma Pi,’ unless you’re put out.” 

“ Yes, I know. You told me.” 

‘‘ And it wouldn’t be my own sorority 
alone that would know about it. Of course 
every chapter of Sigma Pi would be told, 
but, besides that, an official notice would 
be sent out to every fraternity and sorority 
in Marston, stating that Jacquette Wil- 
lard had been ‘ dishonourably expelled.’ 
No reason would be given — ^just the fact.” 

Aunt Sula waited. 

“ I really haven’t any friends at school 
outside of Sigma Pi,” Jacquette went on, 
slowly. “ If I should resign, all my friends 
would be my enemies.” 

“ Suppose some of the girls should de- 
cide to go out with you ^ ” 

184 . 


Jacquette’s Rehellion 


“ And break up Sigma Pi ! and let the 
Kappa Delts triumph over us ! I couldn’t 
bear it! And the girls wouldn’t go with 
me, either. When it came to the point, 
they couldn’t! I’d resign alone, and I’d 
be alone. The other sororities wouldn’t 
have anything to do with me, and, even if 
there were any non-sorority girls worth 
knowing, they wouldn’t want me, after I 
had been expelled from Sigma Pi. That’s 
true, Tia.” 

“Oh, Jacquette! Among so many, 
there must be some nice ones who haven’t 
joined sororities because their parents 
didn’t approve of them, or because they 
couldn’t stand the extra expense, or some 
such reason. You’d find them out before 
long.” 

“ No. You can’t understand till you’ve 
been there. The nice girls who aren’t al- 
lowed to join some sorority are so un- 
happy at Marston that their parents have 
to send them somewhere else. You see Mr. 


185 


Jacquette, a Sorority Girl 

Pierce is going to take Winifred away. 
Besides,” Jacquette ended, irrelevantly, 
“ Quis and Bobs would both despise me if 
I deserted my sorority. They think girls 
are always fighting, anyway. They say 
we don’t know how to be real friends to 
each other.” 

“ But had you forgotten all these things 
when you said you wanted to resign, Jac- 
quette? ” 

“No, I hadn’t. I counted the whole 
cost on my way home, that day, and I 
thought I could face it for the sake of 
punishing the girls. And it isn’t remem- 
bering these things that makes me feel dif- 
ferently, now, Tia. It’s — it’s — oh, it’s 
that bunch of violets, with its message, 
don’t you see? They’re a darling bunch 
of girls, after all. I love them, Tia. I — 
don’t see how I could resign from Sigma 
Pi!” 

Jacquette looked as if she expected to 
be laughed at for the confession, but there 
186 


Jacquette^s Rehellion 


was not a shadow of a smile on Aunt Sula’s 
face as she answered, 

“ I’m not surprised, dear. I know you 
love the girls, and I’m learning to feel the 
net that closes about you when you con- 
sider cutting loose from the sorority. But 
I want you to think of everything. If 
you stand firm for what you believe to be 
right, you’ll have these same clashes of 
opinion over and over, with each new set of 
girls that come^ into Sigma Pi. Then, an- 
other thing: you will be expected, more 
and more, to take your part in the dele- 
gations that make out of town trips to 
form new chapters, the way the juniors 
and seniors have to do, now, and the 
amount of money and time and strength 
you’ll have to spend, is bound to increase, 
instead of growing less. Now, is it all 
worth while.? ” 

“ But I don’t understand, Tia ! First, 

you wouldn’t let me resign, and now ” 

“ I know ; I couldn’t have you break 
187 


Jacquette, a Sorority Girl 

your vows in a fit of anger, but I do want 
to say this: If the time ever comes when 
you make up your mind deliberately, 
without any personal pique, that the 
sorority is a mistake — that you’re using 
the best of your efforts to build up some- 
thing that really ought not to be — remem- 
ber, I’ll stand by you.” 

Jacquette’s face was earnest, as she 
leaned forward to answer. ‘‘ That time 
will never come, Tia,” she said. “ I never 
realised until to-day what an influence I 
have over the girls, and I’m going to use 
it in the best way. For one thing, I’m 
going to begin new, next week, and show 
everybody what a good student a sorority 
girl call be. And I’m going to stand by 
Sigma Pi, and help her grow into the best, 
biggest high-school sorority in the whole 
United States ! ” 


188 


CHAPTER X 


COMMENCEMENT 

J UNE. The month when all the trees 
in the city parks are waving soft 
green arms and whispering secrets 
about how beautiful it must be now, away 
out in the real country. 

Jacquette was thinking of Brookdale, 
as she walked slowly home after school; 
wondering if the birds were singing there, 
this year, just as they always had before, 
every year since she could remember. 

Suddenly she quickened her steps. 
Someone was coming behind her, and of all 
things she did not want Bobs to think she 
was loitering for the sake of having him 
walk with her! She turned a corner and 
set off at a brisk pace. 

“Oh, Jack! Couldn’t you go a little 
faster? ” a voice called. 


189 


Jacquette, a Sorority Girl 

“ Couldn’t you come a little slower? ” 
she laughed, turning and waiting until he 
came up, breathless. 

“ I’ve raced five blocks while you were 
going one,” he declared, as they fell into 
step together. “ Had to go over to Ned 
Woodward’s first, and I was afraid you’d 
get away. I have a lecture to give 
you.” 

“ Proceed, honourable highness ! Don’t 
you see how meek I look? ” 

“ No, I don’t. I see how pale and tired 
you look. You’re not the same girl that 
came here from Brookdale last fall.” 

“A few still like me, though!” put in 
Jacquette, with a mimic pout. 

“ A few, indeed! Yes ; and my lecture’s 
no sign I don’t.” 

‘‘ Please, sir, where is the lecture ? ” 

“Look here. Jack, I’m in earnest. 
You’re four years younger than I am, and 
I’ve been studying your case — you needn’t 
laugh — and I’ve made up my mind that 
190 


Commencement 


you take your sorority too hard, for one 
thing. You girls all do. You put it ahead 
of everything else, and it wears you out. 
Now, I’d like to see you make up your 
mind that next year you’ll spend more 
time in gym, and less on sorority busi- 
ness. Why don’t you go in for basket- 
ball.? ” 

“ Dr. Bobs Drake ! ” Jacquette mocked, 
but she liked the lecture, for all that. 
“ Look at Louise Markham ! She’s a 
sorority girl, and a splendid student and 
a picture of radiant health, at the end of 
her high-school course. Now, where’s 
your argument ? ” 

“ Jack,” he answered, “ I don’t know 
what the sorority cause is going to do, 
next year, when Louise goes off to col- 
lege. Have you ever noticed how she’s the 
one girl that’s always pointed at, to prove 
that sororities aren’t harmful? She’s a 
stunning argument, but I don’t know an- 
other girl anywhere who can carry all the 

191 


Jacquette, a Sorority Girl 

school work and all the social business she 
can, and not get fagged. You know very 
well that, with most of them, the school 
work has to go under. Isn’t that so.^^ 
Honest, now.” 

“What about fraternities.^” Jacquette 
evaded. “ You’re a pretty one to preach, 
with your pin right there in sight ! ” 

“ Oh, boys are different. We have a 
lot of fun, but we don’t get tragic over 
it and have hysterics and nervous prostra- 
tion the way the girls do. Do you suppose 
my fraternity ever kept me from eating 
three square meals a day.? I don’t believe 
it has interfered with my studies much, 
either, for that matter.” 

“ If that isn’t just like a boy ! ” 
Jacquette retorted. “ Fraternities are all 
right, for them, but sororities are bad for 
girls ! You ask any of the teachers at 
Marston, and I’ll wager they’ll tell you 
there isn’t much choice between frats and 
sororities ! Anyway, Bobs Drake,” she 
192 


Commencement 


added, shifting base with feminine agility, 
“ so far as school work is concerned, my 
sorority hasn’t interfered with mine one 
bit more than football has with yours.” 

“ You can’t tell me anything about 
that,” he admitted. “ And I’ve played my 
last football, too.” 

“You’ve played — your last ” 

“ That’s right. I’m going to college 
on a new basis. The curriculum requires 
enough athletics to keep a fellow in trim, 
and that’s all I’m going to have, after 
this. It’s no use pretending that a fellow 
can do his best work on his studies when 
he’s so tired that it’s all he can do to sit 
up. I’m face to face with the business of 
being a man. Jack.” 

J acquette walked a little way, dumb 
with astonishment. 

Bobs Drake forswearing football! She 
was almost afraid of him! But at last 
she turned. 

“ Robin Sidney Drake ! ” she said, 

193 


JacquettCy a Sorority Girl 

‘‘ You make me so proud of you, I don’t 
know how to express it ! ” 

To say that Bobs looked pleased, tells 
nothing. His whole face beamed. 

“My! You make me as happy as a 
big sun-flower 1 ” he answered, fervently. 

They were almost home, now. 

“ Robin Sidney Drake,” he repeated, 
presently. “ That’s the way you’ll have to 
address the envelopes when I’m at col- 
lege, next year.” 

“ What envelopes, sir ? ” 

“ Well, I was thinking of mailing you 
some catalogues, and I hoped you might 
acknowledge them.” 

They both laughed, the laughter of 
light-hearted comrades. 

“Won’t you come in .5^” Jacquette 
asked, holding out her hand for the books 
he had been carrying. 

“ Can’t do it. Have to work on my class 
prophecy. You got me into trouble last 
November, when you made me write that 

194 


Commencement 


sonnet, young lady. I’m doing this 
prophecy in rhyme, and it’s turning my 
hair grey.” 

“I’m wild to hear it! You and Quis 
will be the only ones to represent the class, 
Friday night, won’t you? What are you 
going to prophesy for Quis, Bobs? ” 

“ Oh, there was only one thing to do 
for him. I’ve made him a diplomat, with 
a strong prospect of becoming Secretary 
of State.” 

“ Good! And Louise? ” 

“ I had a time deciding about Louise. 
She’s so versatile, she might turn out to 
be anything. At first I couldn’t think of 
one talent that was more conspicuous than 
the rest, but I struck it at last. I’m not 
going to tell, though. I want to keep it 
for a surprise. Say, Jack,” — ^Bobs had 
started, but he turned on his heel and came 
back — “ there’s one thing that bothers 
me. Quis has never felt right toward me, 
yet. I don’t believe anybody else at Mars- 
195 


Jacquette, a Sorority Girl 

ton has anything against me, but he never 
looks me in the eye if he can help it. And 
I care. I want to quit friends.” 

“ It’s too bad, Bobs,” she sympathised. 
“ Why can’t he let bygones be bygones ? 
I think you had as much to forgive as 
he, after that ‘ Fool-killer ’ performance. 
But don’t worry. You’ve done all you 
could. Good luck to the prophecy ! ” 

The Assembly room at Marston High 
School was far from being large enough 
for the audience which always attended the 
graduating exercises, and the custom was 
to rent a neighbouring hall for the June 
celebration. It was Friday evening, eight 
o’clock, and every seat in the hall was 
filled. On the stage, framed by garlands 
of green stuff and roses, sat the principal, 
the faculty, the graduating class, and the 
boys’ and girls’ glee club. Through the 
open window the soft June breeze crept in, 
gently stirring fluffy locks and filmy 
ruffles. 


196 


Commencement 


In the front seats, as usual, there was a 
picturesque row of Sigma Pi girls, but 
their rapks were thinned, that night. Five 
of them were on the platform, saying 
farewell to Marston High. Louise Mark- 
ham was one of the five, and, from her 
seat with the class, she smiled straight 
down into the adoring eyes of Jacquette 
Willard who was almost hidden behind the 
mammoth bunch of pink roses she had 
brought for Louise, while Aunt Sula, sit- 
ting with her white-haired father, watched 
the loving looks exchanged between the 
two girls, and thought regretfully how 
much Jacquette would miss Louise’s com- 
panionship in the year that was coming. 

Then the piano sounded, and the glee 
club stood up to sing. 

Everything moved like clockwork. Mr. 
Branch’s remarks were in an unusually 
happy vein ; the glee club outdid itself ; 
Marquis’s address as class president was a 
gem — ‘‘ worthy of a college graduate,” 
197 


Jacquette, a Sorority Girl 

his hearers declared — and, last of all, came 
Robin Sidney Drake, class prophet. 

The enthusiasm was uproarious as Bobs 
took the front of the stage. Everybody 
there knew what always happened when 
Marston’s beloved Bobs tried to make a 
speech, and it seemed as if the haunting 
fear that his tongue might cleave to the 
roof of his mouth when he tried to proph- 
esy kept his audience cheering and cheer- 
ing to put off the evil moment. 

But if that was true, the fears were 
wasted. Bobs had committed the prophecy 
to memory — and he did not forget. 

Perhaps it was because they were sur- 
prised at his ability to speak, at all, that 
his prophecy seemed so good; perhaps it 
really was a wonderful piece of wit. In 
either case, he kept his hearers convulsed 
with merriment from the first word to the 
last. All over the house, solemn faces 
broadened into grins ; tears rolled down the 
cheeks of dignified teachers ; and it was 
198 


Commencement 


only by the greatest effort that anyone 
stopped laughing, after each sally, long 
enough to let him pronounce the next. 

The principal, the teachers, the members 
of the class, had been told off in the 
prophecy, until Louise Markham was the 
only one left. Bobs paused abruptly and 
glanced in her direction. Then he said to 
the audience in a confidential tone: 

“ Wouldst know how future years shall 
celebrate Miss Markham’s name? 
She’ll have to sell that laugh to 
phonographs ; 

Its rippling cadences must surely bring 
her endless fame. 

For, — list a moment, while Louisa 
laughs ! ” 

N. 

He turned, and flourished his hand 
toward Louise, with the air of a showman. 
There was a second of absolute silence. 
Then, as the drollery of the situation 
199 


Jacquette, a Sorority Girl 

flashed upon her, the red lips parted, and 
out bubbled the irresistible laugh! 

Bobs made a low bow of gratitude to 
her, another to the audience, and modestly 
took his seat, amid shouts of laughter and 
rounds of applause. 

It was a long time before Mr. Branch 
could quiet the audience, for it seemed as 
if the event of the evening had taken place, 
but when people finally caught a hint of 
what he was trying to say, they leaned for- 
ward and listened, eagerly enough. 

He was about to present the University 
scholarship, which was carried off each 
year by the brightest star of the gradu- 
ating class, and he was explaining, as he 
always did, that it was awarded, not only 
in recognition of good scholarship, but of 
exemplary deportment during all the four 
years of high-school work. 

Most of the pupils who knew the his- 
tory of Marquis Granville’s last year at 
Marston thought they remembered one 
200 


Commencement 


good reason why he should not get that 
scholarship, and yet, somehow, in spite 
of this, they all expected that his name 
would be the one pronounced. Instead, to 
their surprise, they saw the principal, in 
closing, step forward toward Bobs Drake, 
— no, past Bobs Drake. He laid the 
precious document in the small, white 
hands of Louise Edwina Markham. 

Nobody had expected it, and yet, as 
soon as it had happened, everybody felt 
that it was the right ending to the story — 
and everybody proceeded to express that 
feeling. The blood rushed to Louise’s 
cheeks and her dark eyes shone, but she 
kept a sweet composure through all the 
long hand-clapping and until the last 
word of the closing song was sung and the 
end of the programme announced. 

At that instant, Jacquette, her face 
glowing with pride and gladness, made a 
dash for Louise, but, oddly enough, be- 
fore she could reach her idol, she came 
201 


Jacquette, a Sorority Girl 

face to face with Quis and Bobs, who 
happened to be crowded close together 
in the confusion following dismissal. 

Both boys saw her coming, and, each 
taking it for granted that she was rush- 
ing straight toward him, held out his 
hand. Like a flash, before either could 
feel his mistake, the quick-witted girl 
caught both hands, one in her right and 
the other in her left. 

‘‘Boys, you were splendid! You were 
glorious!” she cried, straight from her 
heart. “ Quis, your address was great ; 
and Bobs ” 

The words failed, for, suddenly, she felt 
the barrier of constraint between the boys, 
and, with a swift impulse, not stopping to 
fear consequences, she drew their two right 
hands together, and darted one appealing 
glance at Quis. 

This time he did not fail her. 

“ Yes, old man, you’re the one to be 
congratulated,” he cried, grasping Bobs’s 
202 


Commencement 


hand so quickly that Jacquette’s part was 
almost lost. My speech was an every- 
day oration, but that prophecy of yours 
was a stroke of genius. We’re all proud 
of it, I tell you ! ” 

Bobs’s face lighted up. He tried to 
speak, but, before the words could form, 
his blue eyes had said it all, and Jacquette, 
standing close to them both, murmured, 
with a tremble in her voice, 

“ Oh, boys — I’m so glad ! ” 

At that moment, the gentle fingers of 
Mademoiselle Dubois were laid on the 
clasped hands of the two young men. 

“ My little peacocks ! ” she said caress- 
ingly, with a quick, understanding glance 
from one to the other. “ I am ravished to 
see the heroes of the evening clasping 
hands ! ” 

“ Bobs Drake, you sinner ! ” struck in a 
merry voice from over Jacquette’s shoul- 
der. “How dared you? And to think 
that I should help you to disgrace me in 
203 


JacquettCy a Sorority Girl 

my last moments at Marston ! I acted 
just like a trained animal ! ” 

“ Louise ! Louise ! That scholarship ! ” 
Jacquette half-shrieked, whirling around 
and venting her deferred congratulations 
in a smothering embrace. “ Here come 
the Sigma Pi girls to hug you ! Look out 
for yourself!” 

With the Sigma Pi girls came the fond 
mothers and fathers, the grandfathers and 
Aunt Sulas, the Uncle Macs and Aunt 
Fanny s, the brothers and sisters, and all 
the rest of the proud, happy friends. 

Everybody’s face was covered with 
smiles ; everybody’s voice was bright with 
gladness ; but, through all those blithesome 
moments, in the depths of one girl’s heart, 
was running an undercurrent of feeling 
that no one guessed. 

She kept it hidden until she and Aunt 
Sula were quite alone at home. Then she 
put both hands on the little woman’s 
shoulders, and said, in a low voice. 

204 


Commencement 


“ Tia, I saw you when they gave Louise 
that scholarship. I saw the look on your 
face. It was just a look of yearning envy, 
and Tia — don’t deny it! — it was because 
you knew my first year’s marks were so low 
that I couldn’t get the scholarship, now, 
no matter how I might try, the rest of the 
time. There isn’t any chance to get it, 
now, and oh — the reason I feel the worst 
is because I can’t help knowing that my 
sorority has lost me the chance 1 ” 

She hid her face on Aunt Sula’s shoul- 
der. “ I don’t know how Louise ever 
managed to be a sorority girl and a good 
student, too,” she murmured. “ The rest 
of us can’t. Tia, I believe I’d give up any- 
thing if I could only get back the chance 
of winning that scholarship — for you!” 

Aunt Sula patted her tenderly. 
“ There’s something I care for more than 
scholarships, Jacquette,” she said, cheerily, 
and you haven’t lost your chance for 
that. It’s the development of character; 

205 


Jacquette, a Sorority Girl 

learning to see things in their relative pro- 
portions — and to choose the best things. 
That stands before high marks, I think, 
though high marks are almost sure to be 
a part of it.” 

There was silence for a minute; then 
Jacquette lifted her face. “ Do you 
mean,” she asked, doubtfully, “ that if I 
were to try just as hard, in studies and 
deportment, from now on, as if I were 
working for that scholarship with a real 
chance of winning, it would be worth as 
much as the scholarship itself, to you ? ” 

“ More!” 

Jacquette’s hand moved toward her 
heart, and drew back, irresolute. 

‘‘ Tia,” she begged, her voice breaking, 
“ do you believe it’s actually true, as the 
girls say, that if I resign from Sigma Pi, 
I won’t have any friends in school — ^not 
one ? ” 

She stood, in the white gown she had 
worn that evening, all unconscious of the 
206 


Commencement 


commanding power of her youth and 
sweetness, and the little woman who loved 
her with a great love, looked up into her 
face. “ No,” she answered emphatically. 
“It is not true!” 

Slowly, Jacquette’s hand moved again 
to the Sigma Pi pin on her breast, un- 
clasped it, and held it in her hand. 

“ I’ve made up my mind to do it,” she 
said. 


207 


CHAPTER XI 


COMPROMISE 

W HEN Jacquette came down to 
breakfast the next morning, 
looking pale in spite of her 
fresh pink and white gown, her grand- 
father stood at the foot of the stairs wait- 
ing, and, as she paused on the last step, 
he put both hands on her shoulders, and 
kissed her. 

Not a word was said about the missing 
Sigma Pi pin, but Jacquette, glancing past 
him, saw the tremulous smile on Aunt 
Sula’s face, and knew that both these dear- 
est people on earth understood how hard 
it had been for her to make the decision 
of the night before, and were keeping back 
the expression of their own gladness, for 
her sake. It touched her deeply to realise 
208 


Compromise 


how much the gentle old man had really 
cared, during all the months when he had 
kept so silent, and the answering hug she 
gave him spoke her feeling as plainly as 
words. 

After that they went to the table and 
chatted about the graduating exercises. 
Bobs’s prophecy, and Louise’s honours as 
lightly as if no such thing as resignation 
from a sorority had ever been thought of, 
until, just as they were rising from break- 
fast, Aunt Sula happened to say, 

“ Of course Uncle Malcolm and Aunt 
Fanny were disappointed that Quis didn’t 
take the scholarship, but it must have been 
easier for them to see Louise carry it off 
than anyone else. She’s such a pet with 
them, they couldn’t help being glad.” 

Then Jacquette’s grandfather, slipping 
one arm around his little, dark-haired 
daughter, and the other around the tall 
girl he called “ Goldilocks,” said slowly, 
‘‘ I suppose the Markhams think they’re 
209 


Jacquette, a Sorority Girl 

the proudest, happiest family in town this 
morning — ^but they’re not.” 

He was looking into Jacquette’s eyes as 
he spoke, and, in spite of a choking sensa- 
tion in her throat, she smiled back at him 
bravely while she squeezed Aunt Sula’s 
hand. It was a comfort to feel that they 
all understood without words. 

Before the morning was over, Jacquette 
slipped away for a talk with Louise, and 
when she came back, she went straight to 
Aunt Sula’s room. 

“ Tia,” she said, don’t think I’m 
weakening, but Louise advises me not to 
take off my pin yet and not to say a word 
to any of the girls until they all come 
together again at the beginning of the f all 
term. There won’t be any sorority doings 
in vacation, anyway, and some of the girls 
have gone away for the summer already, 
and several more start to-day, and she says 
if I should tell the few that are left, they 
would begin to write letters to the others 
210 


Compromise 

giving their versions of the matter, and 
my reasons wouldn’t be half as well under- 
stood as if I went to the first sorority meet- 
ing of the year myself, and explained it 
to them all at the same time.” 

“ That sounds sensible ; perhaps she’s 
right,” Aunt Sula agreed. “ How does 
she feel about what you’re going to do.?^ ” 

“ Oh, she’s the same trump as ever. At 
first she felt that I couldn’t do it — ^that I 
wouldn’t be able to stand the way the girls 
would act, but after that, she praised me 

until I felt foolish. But still ” Jac- 

quette stopped as if sorry she had begun 
the sentence. 

« Well.? ” 

“ She says, Tia, that if she were going 
to be here in high school another year, 
she’s afraid she couldn’t follow my lead. 
It would be more than she could bear to 
have all the Sigma Pi girls turn against 
her.” 

There was a silence before Aunt Sula 
211 


Jacquette, a Sorority Girl 

answered, “ Never think, dear, that I don’t 
appreciate how hard it is.” 

‘‘ And don’t you ever think I’m going 
back on it,” Jacquette cried, brushing 
away a few tears that had come in spite 
of her. “ Will you explain to Grandpa 
why I put this on again.? I — I’d rather 
not have to speak about it.” She walked 
to the mantel where the Sigma Pi pin had 
lain all night. “ Tell him I’m just going 
to wear it until school begins. Louise 
says it would start questioning if I hap- 
pened to meet any of the girls without hav- 
ing it on, and she thinks it will be so much 
better to tell them all together, myself.” 

“ Yes, I’ll tell him,” Aunt Sula prom- 
ised, watching Jacquette’s tender glance 
at the little pin. “ Does it really mean so 
much more to you than any other piece of 
jewellery? ” 

“Oh, it does! It stands for so many 
things — all my Marston good times — all 
my friendships with the girls. Why, any- 
212 


Compromise 


body else but you would think it was per- 
fectly foolish if I should tell how it makes 
me feel to think of leaving olf that pin. 
But there ! — we’re not going to talk about 
it all summer. Where’s that dimity you 
said I could make into a waist.? If I’m 
going to be an accomplished dressmaker 
before vacation’s over, I mustn’t lose any 
time.” 

So she plunged into the summer, de- 
termined not to make her sacrifice unlovely, 
and she succeeded, through all the busy 
weeks that followed. In July there was a 
visit to Brookdale, and after that, by her 
sweetest wiles, she coaxed her stay-at-home 
grandfather into a bracing trip on the 
lakes with Aunt Sula and herself, and 
brought him home feeling years younger 
and happier. 

Then came a series of farewell boat- 
rides and picnics in the park, with Louise 
and Marquis and Bobs, for the two boys 
had honestly buried the high-school 
213 


Jacquette, a Sorority Girl 

hatchet on the night of their graduation, 
and they and Louise were bent on making 
the most of these last days with Jacquette 
before starting away for their first year 
of college work. There was no end to the 
frolics they planned and carried out, until 
suddenly, in the midst of all the hurry and 
fun, came the opening day of school at 
Marston High. 

Except Louise, Marquis and Bobs were 
the only ones outside of home who had been 
told Jacquette’s intention in regard to her 
sorority. Bobs had received the news very 
quietly. ‘‘ It’ll take sand,” was his one 
comment, “ and you have it.” 

But telling Marquis had been another 
matter. 

“ It’s a quixotic attitude, imported from 
Brookdale, and you’ll find it doesn’t belong 
in Channing,” he had declared. “ Aunt 
Sula and grandfather mean all right, I 
know, but their ideas are old-fashioned 
about some things and nobody will get 
214 


Compromise 


your point of view, at all. Everybody at 
Marston will set you down as funny. 
I’m going to have mother go over and 
talk to Aunt Sula.” 

The next day Aunt Fanny had come, 
and had said a great deal in her own force- 
ful way about the pity of making Jac- 
quette a social outcast for the remaining 
three years of her high-school life, espe- 
cially after Marquis had interested himself 
so much to get her nicely started with the 
right girls. It was only the course of 
nature, she maintained, that, in a public 
school where all classes were thrown to- 
gether, the carefully br ought-up girls 
should band together, and be separated 
from the rabble. 

Sula Granville’s answer had been that, 
though she was glad of Jacquette’s de- 
cision, she had never urged it, and, true 
to the spirit of this, she told her every word 
that Aunt Fanny had said. Apparently, 
there was no result, but the warnings found 
215 


Jacquette, a Sorority Girl 

a sensitive spot, none the less, and they 
were all surging through Jacquette’s mind 
when she stood up at the first sorority meet- 
ing of the year, and faced her Sigma Pi 
sisters. 

It was a sparse little gathering, com- 
pared with the last one of the spring be- 
fore. Some of the girls had moved during 
the summer ; others had been graduated ; 
still others had broken off their course at 
Marston to go away to a finishing school. 
The Sigma Pi ranks would soon be filled 
by new girls — in fact there were five or six 
being rushed, even now — ^but, to-day, there 
were less than a dozen at the meeting. 

For a minute Jacquette’s words refused 
to come. She remembered Bobs’s faith: 
“ It’ll take sand — and you have it.” At 
the same instant, she met the loving eyes 
of Louise, sitting there in all the dignity 
of an alumna, among the other girls. She 
knew very well why Louise had taken time, 
in the hurry of preparation for her year 
216 


Compromise 


away from home, to come to that meeting, 
and the knowledge helped. Then she 
thought of Tia, and began. 

It was a simple, straightforward story, 
told with evident effort, and listened to in 
breathless silence by the girls. As Jac- 
quette went on, a blank dismay grew on all 
the faces, but to her relief there was not 
a trace of the unfriendly resentment and 
bitterness that she had dreaded. It 
dawned upon her, while she stood there 
speaking, that a very different feeling had 
grown up between herself and the girls 
since the quarrel of almost a year before, 
and the thought added a new hurt to the 
step she was taking, but it did not make 
her falter. 

She told them frankly how the first half 
of her freshman year had been so filled to 
overflowing with sorority business and so- 
rority fun that her studies had been a 
farce; how she had often been actually 
crowded into the necessity of preparing 
217 


Jacquette, a Sorority Girl 

one lesson during the recitation of an- 
other. She reminded them of her failure 
to pass for the month in two studies, just 
before the semi-finals, and of her determin- 
ation, after that, to show everybody that 
she could be a sorority girl and a student, 
too, an undertaking which had proved too 
much for her physical strength. 

“ But it isn’t only on account of scholar- 
ship and health that I’m saying this,” she 
finished, honestly. “ The truth is, girls, 
while I love you all as much as ever, I can’t 
help knowing that I do owe something to 
my home and the people in it. Last year, 
it was just a place to rush into for eating 
and sleeping. My interests were all some- 
’ where else. Another thing: I haven’t a 
rich father, the way most of you have. I 
haven’t any father living. There is a cer- 
tain sum of money set aside for my educa- 
tion, but it isn’t large, and the proportion 
of it that went into my first year at Mays- 
ton was so much more than it had any 
218 


Compromise 


right to be that the one reason of expense 
is enough to make me feel that I ought to 
give up being a Sigma Pi.” 

Jacquette felt her knees begin to shake 
as she reached this period, and she sat down 
rather abruptly. For a minute no one 
made a sound. 

Then Mamie Coolie, leaning forward, 
asked in a horrified tone, 

Jacquette, you can’t mean you’re go- 
ing to make us expel you ? ” 

Jacquette’s face quivered, but she man- 
aged to answer steadily, “ I suppose it’s 
the only way.” 

“ Oh ! ” “ How dreadful ! ” “ But we 

canH expel Jacquette.” “ Tell her she’s 
wild to think of it.” “ Talk her out of it, 
Louise,” were the whispers that flew round 
the room. Flo Burton sprang to her feet 
to protest, but she sat down again, sobbing, 
and then handkerchief after handkerchief 
went up as the girls saw that there were 
tears in Jacquette’s own eyes. 

219 


Jacquette, a Sorority Girl 

Etta Brainerd, who was presiding, still 
sat in dumb amazement, trying to grasp 
the full significance of the thing, when 
Louise Markham’s voice caught the atten- 
tion of everybody. 

I just want to remind you, girls,” she 
was saying, quietly, “ that inactive mem- 
bership excuses a member from all duties 
connected with the sorority. She isn’t re- 
quired to help in the rushing, to go to 
spreads or initiations, in fact to do any- 
thing. She doesn’t have to pay dues. She 
simply wears her pin and is just as much 
one of us as ever in her spirit toward us 
and ours toward her. She’s allowed to 
know sorority secrets and she gets bids to 
the dances and all that, just like an alumna, 
and the best of it all is that no one outside 
of the sorority has to be any the wiser. 
There’s not a thing about inactive mem- 
bership that could possibly interfere with 
one’s scholarship, or one’s health, or one’s 
pocket-book, and if the time comes when 
220 


Compromise 


circumstances permit the inactive member 
to become active again, all she has to do 
is to say so. Of course I don’t want to 
dictate, when I’m not going to be here my- 
self, but I just offer these remarks as a 
suggestion.” 

“ That’s the thing ! ” Flo Burton ex- 
claimed, as Louise took her seat. 

“ That’s what we’ll do ! ” “ Make her 

inactive for a year.” “You needn’t do a 
bit of work, Jacquette, but we can’t spare 
you and we just couldn't disgrace you be- 
fore the whole school. We love you too 
much.” 

“ Oh, I’m so glad you spoke of that, 
Louise ! ” cried all the girls together, 
throwing the order of the meeting to the 
winds as they crowded about the chair 
where Jacquette sat, her face flooded with 
sudden gladness. 

Louise had not given her an inkling of 
what she meant to do, and Jacquette had 
never thought of hoping that the girls 
221 


Jacqwette, a Sorority Girl 

might cling to her, regardless of her active 
usefulness to the sorority. The whole 
spirit of the meeting was so different from 
the thing which she had braced herself to 
endure that it swept her along, unresist- 
ing, and it began to seem as if she had 
created, in her own imagination, a bogy 
which never existed. What harm could 
there be in simply keeping the friendship 
of the girls? 

“ Oh, Louise,” she whispered, eagerly, 
catching the hand of her closest friend, 
“ do you think it’s all right? Would Tia 
be just as well pleased? ” 

“ Don’t see why not,” was the sturdy 
answer. “ It gives you back all your time 
for study and home things, and just pre- 
vents your losing the friendship of the 
girls you like best. I think she’ll be glad, 
or I shouldn’t have proposed it.” 

So it was settled, and when Jacquette, 
still wearing her pin, walked home with a 
body-guard of devoted Sigma Pi girls fol- 
222 



As they crowded about Jacquette, her face 
flooded with sudden gladness 





Compromise 

lowing to the door, it seemed as if a great 
cloud had rolled out of her sky. Inactive 
membership would have seemed impossible 
before the moment when she had made up 
her mind to endure actual expulsion, but 
now, with its promise of comparative se- 
crecy, its assurance of continued friend- 
ship from the girls, and its possibility of a 
return to activity sometime in the future, 
it glittered like a beautiful reward of vir- 
tue. 

She was so sure of having done the right 
thing, that it was hard to be patient and 
explain, when Aunt Sula and her grand- 
father seemed doubtful, but she succeeded, 
and, when she finally went upstairs alone, 
she smiled at a happy Jacquette in the 
mirror, resolving that Tia should see, 
from day to day, how truly inactive mem- 
bership would give all the benefits and none 
of the drawbacks of the uncompromising 
other plan. 

Jacquette was early at school the next 
223 


Jacquette, a Sorority Girl 

morning, and Mademoiselle gave her an 
approving nod. Then she asked her to 
help two new pupils in making out their 
programme. 

It happened that they were both girls 
who had been singled out the day be- 
fore as possible members of Sigma Pi, 
and, though Jacquette fully intended to 
keep out of the rushing, she was glad of 
an innocent chance to lend a hand, and 
proceeded to make herself as attractive as 
possible. While doing so, she took such a 
fancy to the younger of the two, a shy 
little brown-eyed girl named Mary Elliott, 
that at noon she found herself watching 
for them to come out of their class so that 
she might take them under her wing and 
show them the best kind of sandwich to buy 
at the “ eat-house.” 

As the three went out of the school 
building together, they met a group of 
Jacquette’s Sigma Pi sisters, with two 
more new girls, and all fell in together. 

224 


Compromise 


‘‘ Isn’t that a Sigma Pi Epsilon pin you 
have on?” Mary Elliott asked of Jac- 
quette, who nodded with an odd little rip- 
ple of gladness over her face. 

“ Marion, that settles it for me? ” said 
Mary to the other girl. 

‘‘Settles what?” Jacquette inquired. 

“ Oh, nothing ; only two sororities have 
asked us to their spreads this afternoon, 
and I want to go to the Sigma Pi Epsilon 
one, if that’s what you belong to.” 

“ Well, I should say ! So do I,” Marlon 
Crandall chimed in promptly, with a bold, 
black-eyed glance at Jacquette, which, 
though it was meant to be flattering, did 
not altogether please her. 

“ Do all the girls that go to this school 
belong to sororities ? ” Mary Elliott asked 
Jacquette in a timid undertone. 

“ Mercy, no ! ” 

The innocent question brought a smile 
to Jacquette’s face. 

“All the nicest ones, then?” 


225 


Jacquette, a Sorority Girl 

“ Well, a nice girl that didn’t make a 
sorority would have a pretty lonesome time 
at Marston,” Jacquette was admitting, 
when Blanche Gross suddenly whirled 
around and offered them hot roasted pea- 
nuts from the bag she carried. 

“ Jack, do you know about these four 
Marys she asked, laughingly. “You 
have two with you, and I have two more 
here. Let me make you acquainted with 
Mary Barnes from St. Paul and Marie 
Stanwood from Omaha.” 

“ And here’s Marion Crandall and Mary 
Elliott,” J acquette responded. “ Isn’t 
that the funniest thing They must be 
the ‘ Queen’s Maries ’.” 

“ Oh, do you know that song.?^ ” said 
Mary Elliott. “ My mother used to sing 
me to sleep with it.” 

“ Pretty sad going to sleep, wasn’t it.?* ” 
Jacquette asked, with a smile, and 
hummed a little of the haunting old 
melody : 


226 


Compromise 


‘‘ ‘ Yestreen the Queen had four Maries, 
The night she’ll hae but three. 

Oh, little did my mother ken, 

The death I was to dee ! ’ ” 

“You left out, 

“ ‘ There was Mary Seaton, and Mary 
Beaton, 

And Mary Carmichael, and me.’ 

And oh, girls ! — we are Mary B, and Mary 
S. and Mary C. and me. I must be ‘ me ’ 
— M. E. — Mary Elliott.” 

“Sure enough!” Jacquette answered, 
gaily. “ Now, all you girls have to do is 
to fly around and catch your Queen.” 

But, while the rest laughed, Mary 
Elliott surprised her by nestling closer as 
they passed into the restaurant, and whis- 
pering, with an adoring upward glance, 
“ I’ve caught my Queen, now.” 

227 


Jacquette, a Sorority Girl 

This was how it happened that Jac- 
quette began to be called the “ Queen ” — 
a nickname that clung to her from that 
day ; and, in spite of the fact that she was 
never seen at spreads, and that she was 
even absent from the triumphant initia- 
tion, a few weeks later, when the “ four 
Maries ” were all taken into Sigma Pi at 
once, the new girls understood that she was 
identified with the sorority they were join- 
ing, and, for some reason — perhaps in the 
start a fanciful idea of being the “ Queen’s 
Maries ” — they insisted on choosing her as 
their sorority ‘‘ mother.” 

It was she who furnished them with the 
thousand and one little hints on high- 
school dress and manners which were part 
of the Sigma Pi education of new mem- 
bers, and, in return, all the Maries, with the 
exception perhaps of Marion Crandall, 
whose effusive manner never seemed quite 
real to Jacquette, gave their Queen the 
confidence of devoted subjects. 

228 


Compromise 


But, of the four, it was Mary Elliott 
who came closest. After a little, she fell 
into the habit of bringing her books, day 
after day, and studying at the “ Palace,” 
as the Queen’s modest home was imme- 
diately dubbed, and both Mr. Granville 
and his daughter found themselves grow- 
ing very fond of the gentle girl, at first 
because of the love in her eyes whenever 
she looked at Jacquette, but soon because 
of her own dear, quiet little self. 


229 


CHAPTER XII 


THE BEAL QUEEN 

T he first weeks of Jacquette’s sopho- 
more year discouraged her. After 
Louise and Bobs and Marquis had 
gone, a blank fell into her days. All 
around her the Sigma Pi good times were 
going on, but, though she was allowed to 
share the secrets whenever the girls re- 
membered to tell them to her, she con- 
stantly felt herself just outside the circle 
of fun. She had too much time to study, 
and, without the excitement that had 
urged and hurried her all the year before, 
she dragged through her lessons listlessly. 
The zest had gone from everything. 

It was not long before Mademoiselle’s 
keen eyes noticed the change, and one day, 
with a few adroit questions, she learned the 
facts. 


230 


The Real Queen 


“ But is it a secret, dearie — this inactive 
membership? ” she asked, almost before 
Jacquette realised that she had mentioned 
it. 

“ No, not exactly. It’s all right for you 
to know. Mademoiselle, but of course we 
don’t care to have the other sororities mak- 
ing capital of it. They’d tell all the new 
girls there must be something wrong with 
Sigma Pi, or my people wouldn’t have 
wanted me to be inactive.” 

“ I see,” said Mademoiselle with an un- 
derstanding shake of the head. “ At any 
rate, I’m glad it’s right for me to know, 
pet, because it makes me happy. Now, 
about the lessons, did it ever occur to you, 
honey, that, after a dear little girl has once 
fallen into the habit of pinning her gar- 
ments together, it is very hard for her to 
feel the necessity of sewing on buttons? ” 

Jacquette looked puzzled. 

“ This is what I mean,” Mademoiselle 
went on, lifting her shoulders ever so little 
231 


Jacquette, a Sorority Girl 

and giving her head a sprightly toss which 
Jacquette instantly recognised as her own. 
“ I’m a bright little girl ! I’m a clever 
little girl! It isn’t necessary for me to 
spend time on my lessons. Oh, no, I never 
look up the references! I don’t bother 
with the grammar! My translation is so 
good that it brings up my marks even if 
I do fail on those stupid old rules. I’m 
such a lucky little girl ! Vll get through, 
“ That’s pinning one’s clothing together 
to keep it from falling off. Wait, dearie, 
I haven’t done. Won’t you try, now that 
you have more time, to form the habit of 
sewing the buttons on your lessons ? ” 

No one could resist Mademoiselle when 
the pleading tone came into her voice, and, 
from that moment, Jacquette’s inactive 
membership became endurable. She had 
begun to sew on the buttons ; and grad- 
ually, as the weeks went on, she won back 
the old Brookdale sense of satisfaction in 
making each lesson a finished piece of work 
232 


The Real Queen 


— a feeling which she had learned to re- 
gard as childish during her freshman year 
at Mars ton. 

“ Tia, what makes you look so young? ” 
she demanded, one evening, as she and 
Aunt Sula finished playing a duet which 
ended in a series of martial chords. “ Is it 
just that rose-coloured waist? You don’t 
know what a dear little brown ringlet there 
is, trickling down in front of this ear.” 

‘‘Trickling ringlet! Your English 
teacher would call that a vicious misuse 
of the verb,” Aunt Sula laughed as she 
tucked the ringlet into place. “ Perhaps 
I look different because I’m so happy over 
your finding time for the music again. I 
feel as if somebody had given me back my 
Brookdale girl.” 

“ Brookdale,” Jacquette repeated, with 
an odd little smile, as she hunted through 
a pile of music. “ That makes me think 
of Margaret Howland. She asked me 
right out, this morning, why I wasn’t go- 
233 


Jacquette, a Sorority Girl 

ing to spreads and things ; so I had to tell 
her in confidence, that I was inactive for 
this year. Guess what she said.” 

“ ‘ Oh, how I do envy you ! ’ ” Aunt Sula 
hazarded, roguishly. 

“No, sir! She said for goodness’ sake 
not to let her mother hear of it, or she’d 
surely be made to do the same thing.” 

“ Oh ! Mrs. Howland has her troubles, 
then.” 

“ Troubles 1 If you think Sigma Pi 
makes troubles, you ought to have a little 
experience with the Kappa Delts. They’ve 
been just over-reaching themselves in their 
rushing this fall. It’s spreads every other 
minute, and matinees and automobile rides 
and bunches of violets for their pledges, 
and everything else you can think of. The 
worst of it, for Margaret, is that she’s 
the kind of girl that tries to keep up Her 
studies besides, you know, and I can’t 
help seeing, myself, that she’s just worn 
out.” 


234 


The Real Queen 

“ Too bad. Don’t you think you 
might ” 

“ Coax her to be inactive.? Never in the 
world! You ought to have heard her pity 
me, this morning! She’s a dandy girl, 
though. I was thinking, to-day, that if 
she’d only happened to be a Sigma Pi, she 
and I would have had such fine times to- 
gether all through high school. Here’s 
that duet I was looking for. We haven’t 
played it for ages. Let’s try it.” 

Next morning, when Jacquette reached 
school she found an unusual buzz of ex- 
citement outside the building. Newspapers 
were fluttering everywhere, and knots of 
boys and girls were standing about, each 
group with heads close together over some 
intensely interesting article that they were 
reading. 

The Sigma Pi girls were gathered near 
the school entrance, and, as Jacquette came 
up, Mamie Coolidge thrust a paper under 
her eyes. 


235 


Jacquette, a Sorority Girl 

“ See that,” she ordered, pointing to the 
tall headlines, 

“BOARD OF EDUCATION 
SCORES AGAINST 
SECRET SOCIETIES ” 

“ They’ve got our injunction set aside. 
Jack,” Blanche Gross hurried to explain, 
without waiting for Jacquette to read the 
rest. “ So now they can enforce that hor- 
rid rule against secret societies, and they’re 
going to do it. And do you realise what 
it means, right here in Sigma Vi? No 
sorority girl can hold a class office any 
more. That makes Etta give up the secre- 
taryship of the junior class!” 

“ And it takes Blanche out of the senior 
dramatics; that’s worse,” Etta broke in. 

“ And Flo Burton off the basket-ball 
team,” Blanche took it up again. “ And 
as for football, the Marston eleven will 
236 


The Real Queen 

simply go to smash. Nearly every fellow 
on it is a fraternity man.” 

“ Oh, it will hill this school, that’s all ! ” 
Mamie Coolidge declared. “ It may not 
make so much difference in schools where 
there aren’t so many secret societies, and 
of course we’ll get another injunction very 
soon, but, in the meantime, Marston High 
will suffer more than we will, that’s one 
sure thing.” 

“ That’s the tardy bell, girls ! ” cried 
somebody, just then, and, before Jacquette 
could learn any more, the newspaper was 
furled and they all went hurrying to their 
places. 

As she reached her desk she noticed 
Mary Elliott looking at her with swollen 
eyes, from across the aisle. A minute 
later Mary reached over and laid a scrap 
of paper on Jacquette’s desk. On it was 
scrawled the two lines: 

“ Yestreen the Queen had four Maries, 

The night she’ll hae but three.” 

237 


JacquettCy a Sorority Girl 


“ What do you mean? ” Jacquette scrib- 
bled beneath the words, and handed the 
paper back, but instead of answering, 
Mary put her handkerchief to her eyes and 
began to cry. 

Jacquette watched her in bewilderment. 
Had she offended her without knowing 
it? 

Then the soft, penetrating voice of 
Mademoiselle, calling her name from the 
roll, brought her back to duty, and she 
faced about with a start. 

As soon as the noon hour came, Jac- 
quette followed Mary into the hall. 

“ What is it, Mary ? What do you 
mean ? ” she asked. 

“ Haven’t you seen the morning 
paper ? ” 

“ Why, yes, but 

“Oh, it’s different with you! Your 
family understands. But you ought to 
have seen how angry my father was when 
he read that article.” 


238 


The Real Queen 

“ Angry ? At the Board, do you 
mean? ” 

“ Oh, no ! It was the first he had ever 
heard about the secret societies getting 
that injunction against the Board, and he 
said it was an unheard-of piece of inso- 
lence, and that he should think every boy 
and girl connected with it would have been 
expelled, and that he felt disgraced to see 
me wearing this pin and he wasn’t going 
to have a daughter of his belonging to an 
organisation that was in antagonism to 
the school authorities, and ” 

“ But, Mary, didn’t you tell him there 
was no such thing as resigning from 
Sigma Pi? ” 

“ Oh, I did ! ” Mary had shrunk back 
into a dark corner of the hall where she 
could mop her eyes without being noticed. 
“ I told him I’d have to be expelled from 
the sorority and that would disgrace me 
before the whole school, and everything 
else, but nothing made any difference. He 
2S9 


JacquettCy a Sorority Girl 

says the disgrace is in belonging to such 
a society. He’s given me three days to 
make up my mind to leave Sigma Pi of 
my own accord and if I haven’t done it 
] then, I think he’s going to make me. Oh, 
Jacquette ! ” Mary began to sob again. 
“ I haven’t any mother, you know. There’s 
just a housekeeper.” 

“You poor little thing!” said Jac- 
quette, drawing Mary’s arm through hers 
protectingly. “ Here, take my handker- 
chief. Yours is soaking wet. There! Now, 
come out in the air, and eat some lunch- 
eon. I’m thinking of something that I 
believe will comfort you, but I can’t tell 
you about it just yet. I wouldn’t say 
much to the other girls, until you’ve heard 
my plan. Just stop worrying until to- 
morrow, can’t you, please? You must, 
you know, if the Queen says so.” 

“ Oh, but I can’t bear being expelled 
and having the girls not like me! Jac- 
quette, will you have to turn against me? 

240 


The Real Queen 


Will I have to give up being one of the 
Queen’s Maries ? ” 

“ I should say not ! ” Jacquette declared, 
with a sudden sense of shame as she recog- 
nised her own old fears in Mary’s panic. 
“ You leave the whole thing to me.” 

‘‘Oh, you don’t know my father!” 
Mary protested, but she dried her tears 
and smiled, in spite of herself, as she fol- 
lowed the Queen into the bracing October 
air. 

“ I hope to have that honour, some 
day,” Jacquette answered, roguishly. She 
felt very motherly and tender toward this 
timid girl who seemed so easily influenced 
by her. “ In the meantime, I’m going to 
take his daughter and get her something 
to eat. Where’s Marion Crandall, to- 
day ” 

“ I don’t know. She didn’t come to 
school.” 

“ Etta ! ” Jacquette called, just then, as 
she and Mary overtook a buzzing group of 
241 


Jacquette, a Sorority Girl 

Sigma Pi girls, gathered under a tree. 
“ Let me see that paper, won’t you ? I 
didn’t get a chance to read it before 
school.” 

“ This is the afternoon paper. There’s 
something worse yet, now. Isn’t that per- 
fectly shameful.f^ ” Etta answered ex- 
citedly, pointing to a column which was 
headed, 

“ SIGMA PI EPSILON 
SORORITY IN 
DISGRACE.” 

“ Mercy ! ” Jacquette gasped. “ What’s 
this.? ” 

Her eyes ran hurriedly through the sen- 
sational account of a deception which had 
been practised at Marston High School by 
two members of the Sigma Pi Epsilon so- 
rority. 

For the sake of getting into a sorority 
that she considered desirable, the article 
242 


The Real Queen 


said, a certain girl who lived outside of the 
district had given as her own the address 
of one of the members of the Marston 
chapter of Sigma Pi Epsilon, and, by do- 
ing so, had been admitted to the school. 
The names of both girls were suppressed, 
but it was stated that the one who had 
allowed her address to be used had been 
suspended, and the other expelled, from 
school. 

‘‘ And of course there’s not one word of 
truth in it all ! ” J acquette exclaimed. 

“ I wish there weren’t,” said Etta, 
gloomily. 

“ What do you mean ? ” 

“ I mean that Marlon Crandall is the 
girl that gave Bessie Bartlett’s address for 
hers so that she could come to Marston — 
and Bess let her do it, too.” 

“ One of my Maries ! And never told 
me! You didn’t know it, did you, Mary.? ” 
Jacquette asked, turning to the girl at her 
side. 


243 


Jacquette, a Sorority Girl 

“ I didn’t, J acquette,” put in Mary 
Barnes. 

“ Nor I, either. It’s a perfect shock 
to me,” said Marie Stanwood. 

But Jacquette was watching Mary 
Elliott. 

“ Yes, I did,” Mary owned, miserable in 
her honesty. “ But it was before I knew 
you, and Marion made me promise never 
to tell. She said it was no harm; it was 
just a technical rule that kept her from 
coming to Marston because she lived a 
block too far in a certain direction.” 

“ I knew it, too. I heard Marion ask 
Bess if she could borrow her address,” put 
in Mamie Coolidge, avoiding Jacquette’s 
eyes, but determined not to let little Mary 
Elliott take the blame alone. “ It didn’t 
seem wrong to me, at the time, either. It 
looks different, now. Marion said her 
father knew she was going to do it, and he 
just laughed and thought it was cute. But 
of course I never dreamed she was going 
244 


The Real Queen 


to sign her mother’s name to her report 
card, and then tell those awful yarns to 
Mr. Branch.” 

Jacquette’s eyes looked black instead of 
hazel, and she was every inch the “ Queen ” 
as the girls fell into a semi-circle before 
her and obediently answered her questions. 

“ Why, you see,” Blanche Gross took up 
the story, “ Marion cut a lot of her classes 
the first few weeks after she was initiated 
Sigma Pi. I suppose the sorority impor- 
tance went to her head a little, the way it 
does, sometimes, you know, and at the end 
of the month her report was so bad that 
she got worried about it and signed her 
mother’s name to it instead of taking it 
home. But her room-teacher suspected 
the signature, and Mr. Branch wrote a 
letter to Marion’s mother at the address 
she had given, and it was Bessie’s house, 
of course, and she and Marion got the let- 
ter from the postman, and tore it up, and 
then Mr. Branch called them to the office. 


245 


JacqiLette, a Sorority Girl 

and questioned them, and they got all mud- 
dled up, and ” 

“ Do you mean they didn’t tell the 
truth? ” Jacquette demanded. 

“ Well, you know how Bess is, Jac- 
quette. She never had a bad intention in 
her life, and she thought she was doing the 
whole thing for the sake of Sigma Pi, don’t 
you see? Marion was her Sigma Pi sis- 
ter, and in trouble, and she felt that she 
just had to answer Mr. Branch in the way 
that would help Marion out. But he saw 
right through the story and now she’s sus- 
pended for a month and Marion Crandall 
is expelled and Sigma Pi is disgraced, and 
the Kappa Delts will just be in clover!” 

“ Oh, it’s awful! ” Jacquette exclaimed. 

“ It makes me wish ” She stopped 

short, and closed her lips. “ Come, 
Mary,” she said, gently. I don’t blame 
you. You made a mistake, and we all do 
that. I want you to eat something before 
the bell rings. The rest of you girls had 
246 


The Real Queen 


better do the same, too,” she added over her 
shoulder as she drew Mary along. “We 
can’t live on excitement.” 

From that moment until she hurried 
away from school in the afternoon, care- 
fully avoiding the possibility of meeting 
any of the girls, a busy undercurrent of 
thinking was going on in Jacquette’s 
mind. To her disappointment, when she 
reached the house, she found it deserted, 
but the first thing she did was to get the 
morning paper and read all about the ac- 
tion of the Board of Education. Then, 
after walking back and forth through the 
empty rooms, and standing at the window, 
looking impatiently down the street, she 
turned with a sudden impulse and going to 
the telephone, called Flo Burton. 

Ever since their memorable interview 
with Mr. Pierce in the principal’s room, 
J acquette had been finding out good quali- 
ties in this harum-scarum girl, and she 
turned to her now in the hope of sym- 
247 


Jacquette, a Sorority Girl 

pathy. Flo had been missing from the 
council of Sigma Pi sisters at noon and, 
remembering that Flo’s classes were ar- 
ranged, this year, so that she went home 
before luncheon, Jacquette thought there 
might be a chance of finding her there now, 
though she knew that most of the girls 
had probably flocked to the sorority rooms 
to talk things over. 

Flo answered the telephone, and Jac- 
quette plunged into her subject with the 
first words. 

“ I want to talk with you,” she said. 
“ Do you realise that we’re in disgrace with 
the school authorities ? ” 

“ You mean on account of Marion and 
Bess.?” 

“ Of course, that ; but I was thinking, 
just now, about what the Board has done. 
Seems to me all fraternities and sororities 
are in disgrace from now on, with this rule 
in force, shutting us out from all the 
school honours and privileges.” 

248 


The Real Queen 


“ But — Jacquette Willard!” came in a 
scandalised tone. “ Surely you can’t mean 
you’d turn traitor to Sigma Pi for the 
sake of holding a class office.^ ” 

“ Turn traitor — ^no I I’m not thinking 
about offices. But you know, yourself, 
that the boys are planning to collect more 
money and fight the Board again, and 
doesn’t it seem to you, Flo, that it’s a 
question, now, of deciding between our eo- 
rority and our school.^ ” 

“ But, Jack,” Flo answered, with tears 
in her voice. “ Surely you’ll decide 
right! ” 

There was something so childishly one- 
sided in this appeal that Jacquette smiled, 
and, as she did so, she realised for the first 
time that she herself had almost outgrown 
Flo’s tragic view. But she understood that 
view too well to make the mistake of laugh- 
ing at it. 

“Aren’t there two sides, Florrie?” she 
coaxed. “ Oughtn’t we to have a little of 
249 


Jacquette, a Sorority Girl 

the same feeling toward Marston that col- 
lege students have when they talk about 
their ‘ Alma Mater ’? ” 

We aren’t hurting Marston ! ” came 
the retort. “ It’s that horrid old Board 
that has spoiled the foot-baU team — and 
everything! It’s just a case of persecu- 
tion.” 

“ Oh, Flo I MTiy, I don’t see what else 
the Board could do, if it wanted to dis- 
courage secret societies. It can’t forbid 
our joining them, you see, if our fathers 
and mothers let us, but perhaps it can 
manage to make them unpopular, by this 
rule.” 

“ Make itself unpopular, I guess you 
mean.” 

“ See here, Flo,” Jacquette asked, ab- 
ruptly. “ I want you to tell me something. 
If I should decide to give up Sigma Pi, 
would it break our friendship.? ” 

“ What a question ! It would have to, 
of course. Do you suppose, if it really 
250 


The Real Queen 


came to choosing between Sigma Pi and 
you, it would take me a minute to decide? 
But you’ll never do such a thing. You’re 
teasing me.” 

“ No, I’m not teasing,” Jacquette said, 
in a disappointed voice, and, after a few 
minutes more of fruitless discussion, she 
hung up the receiver, and sat thinking. 

“ Miss Jacquette,” said Mollie, the 
maid, putting her head in at the door, 
“ the woman that sews for your auntie 
is here, and wants to speak to someone.” 

“ Bring her into the library, Mollie,” 
Jacquette answered, and, with her thoughts 
still on the talk with Flo, she listened to 
the dressmaker’s errand, and asked her to 
be seated until Miss Granville should 
come in. 

‘‘ Glad to do it, I’m sure,” Mrs. Waller 
agreed, as she put back the floating brown 
veil which covered her shabby turban, and 
settled herself comfortably. “ I’m glad of 
the rest. I’ve walked about fifteen blocks 


251 


Jacquette, a Sorority Girl 

to see your aunt,' and now she’s not here. 
Just home from school, aren’t you, my 
dear.J^ Go to Marston.? Say, there’s 
plenty of excitement over there to-day, I 
guess. One of those sororities got into 
print, didn’t it? Well, I think they’re a 
dreadful bad thing for girls, anyhow.” 

‘‘What’s that?” Jacquette’s wander- 
ing attention was fixed in an instant. “ I’m 
a sorority girl myself, Mrs. Waller,” she 
added rather coldly. 

“ You don’t say ! Well, now, I didn’t 
suppose your aunt would hear of such a 
thing. She’s so sensible, as a general 
rule! But, of course, they’re not all off 
one piece, and yours may be better than 
most. This one that’s in disgrace, now, is 
about the worst, from what I hear. I sew 
for one of the teachers over there, and 
that’s how I come to know so much about 
it. She’s good friends with the principal, 
herself, so she gets things straight, and 
she tells me those Sigma something girls — 
252 


The Real Queen 


whatever it is — ^had a pretty bad name with 
the faculty before this thing happened. 
They toss their heads at rules, and all that, 
you know.” 

But that isn’t true, Mrs. Waller,” 
Jacquette protested, her Sigma Pi spirit 
bristling like a porcupine. “ I’d like to 
know which teacher made that remark. 
The Sigma Pi girls are as nice a set as 
there is in school. Any sorority is liable 
to make a mistake and take in the wrong 
kind of a member, once in a while, and 
then trouble may come of it, of course, 
but that’s no reason to think the rest are 
all bad ! ” 

‘‘ Well, there, now, my dear, don’t get 
excited ! I really couldn’t mention the 
name of the teacher that told me. 
’Twouldn’t be right. But she knows the 
facts. I didn’t dream you had friends 
among those girls. It’s real too bad for 
them, isn’t it? I mean the nice ones — that 
is, if there are any nice ones, as you say. 

253 


Jacquette, a Sorority Girl 

For of course ‘ Poor Tray is known by 
the company he keeps,’ don’t you know? ” 

The postman’s ring at the door just 
then gave Jacquette an excuse to get away 
without answering, and she walked out into 
the hall, startled by the tumult of indigna- 
tion which Mrs. Waller’s words had roused 
within her. “ That’s the way it would 
always be if I should give up Sigma Pi,” 
she thought to herself. “ At school, they 
would think I was queer, and, outside of 
school, people would just shake their heads 
and say what a wicked set those sorority 
girls must be — because Jacquette Willard 
had to cut loose from them! Nobody 
would ever understand.” 

“It’s a letter for you, Miss; that’s all 
he brought,” said Mollie, turning back 
from the door which she had opened, and, 
as Jacquette took the envelope, she recog- 
nised the big, honest handwriting of Bobs 
Drake. 

For a minute, sorority troubles were for- 
254. 


The Real Queen 


gotten, and a pleased smile replaced the 
worried look, while Jacquette, dropping 
down on the hall bench, opened her letter 
and began to read. The first few pages 
were full of college news and nonsense, and 
the dimples played in her cheeks. Then 
the tone changed. 

‘‘ J ack, I hope you won’t think I’m 
turning preacher,” Bobs wrote, “ but 
there’s something on my chest that I 
wanted to say before I came away, and I 
didn’t have the sand. It’s about the way 
you fell down on that sorority resolu- 
tion.” ( Jacquette’s eyebrows lifted.) “ I 
say ‘ fell down ’ because inactive member- 
ship isn’t the same as what you planned to 
do, by a long sight. And here’s the point : 
If it isn’t good for you to be an active 
member of a sorority, why is it good for 
other girls.? Your health isn’t so much 
more delicate — you don’t require so much 
more time for your lessons — ^than the gen- 
255 


Jacquette, a Sorority Girl 

eral run of girls. Of course they can’t all 
be inactive, as you are now, and escape the 
bad effects of the thing, that way, and yet, 
by wearing your pin and keeping your 
position more or less of a secret, you’re all 
the time influencing other girls to get into 
the very things that you made up your 
mind it was best for you to get out of. 
What you write about the four Maries, 
for instance, especially that little one you 
like so much, makes it plain that you have 
a great influence with some of the girls. 

“ I would have said all this before I left, 
only I didn’t like to disturb you when you 
were so happy about the arrangement you 
had made with the girls. But I have a 
teacher, here — ^the finest man I ever knew 
— and talking with him about some other 
things to-night, got me to feeling that I 
was a coward unless I gave you straight 
goods on this. The fact is. Jack, things 
that seemed mighty important in high 
school begin to dwindle when you get to 
256 


The Heal Queen 


college, especially if you have the luck to 
know a man like Prescott. I’ll tell you 
more about him when I see you. 

“ Always the same old 

“ Bobs.” 

“P. S. — had a letter from Clarence 
Mullen, to-day, the second since I’ve been 
here. You’d be surprised to read it. That 
military school is a fine thing for him. 

« R. S. D.” 

Jacquette’s hands, with the letter in 
them, fell into her lap. Things were hap- 
pening strangely to-day. 

“What — going, Mrs. Waller.?” she 
said, with a start, as the dressmaker ap- 
peared in the hall, buttoning her coat 
about her. 

“ Yes, my dear. I’m rested, now, and it 
may be a long time before your aunt comes 
in. I think I’ll just run along and ’phone 
her this evening.” 

As Mrs. Waller went down the steps, 
257 


Jacquette, a Sorority Girl 

old Mr. Granville came up, supporting 
himself with his cane. 

“Now, Grandpa Granville!” Jacquette 
reproached him lovingly, as she drew him 
to his easy chair, and sat down on a stool 
at his side. “ Didn’t you say I was your 
gold-headed cane, and that you couldn’t 
take walks without me? What made you 
go before I got home? ” 

He smiled at her tenderly. “ It wasn’t 
fair,” he admitted, brushing back her soft, 
bright hair. “ And this ivory-headed cane 
doesn’t compare with the gold one either. 
But I was restless, my dear — I was rest- 
less. Sula had to go out, and I got to 
worrying.” 

“ I know why,” Jacquette murmured, 
laying her cheek against his shoulder. 
“ You were bothered by those articles 
about Sigma Pi in the paper to-day.” 

“ You’ve seen them, then? ” 

“ Yes, indeed ! It’s the only topic there 
is, over at school. Did Tia feel bad? ” 


258 


The Real Queen 


He nodded. Then he asked solemnly, 
“ Was it true, dear, that any of our sorosis 
did those dishonest things ” 

“ ‘ Our sorosis ! ’ Oh, grandpa, you 
darling ! ” Jacquette exclaimed, between 
laughing and tears. ‘‘ Who cares if you 
do call it sorosis, as long as you say ‘ our,’ 
that way ! Yes, it was true, but it isn’t 
quite so bad as it looks in the paper. You 
see in the first place we made a mistake 
when we initiated Marion Crandall. We 
didn’t take time to know her well enough. 
We were too anxious to get more new 
members than the Kappa Delts — that was 
the trouble. But she’s expelled from Mars- 
ton, so she’s out of Sigma Pi, and as for 
Bess Bartlett, she just didn’t realise that 
she was doing anything wrong, at all. I 
know how she is. She’s a nice girl, but 
thoughtless.” 

Mr. Granville sighed, without answer- 
ing. 

“ Here’s a letter from Bobs Drake,” 
259 


JacquettCy a Sorority Girl 

Jacquette went on with determined cheer- 
fulness. “ I want you to hear something 
he says.” And she read aloud what Bobs 
had written about her inactive member- 
ship. 

As she finished, her grandfather lifted 
his white head and looked her straight in 
the eyes. ‘‘ Well? ” he asked. 

“ Well,” she answered, steadily, “ I was 
trying to keep it to tell Tia first, but 
you’re so blue, I think she’d want me 
to ” 

“ Here they are, girlsV’ a bright voice 
cried, just then, and Aunt Sula, still in her 
outdoor wraps, walked into the library fol- 
lowed by Mary Barnes and Marie Stan- 
wood and Mary Elliott. “ I found three 
forlorn girls outside, Jacquette, trying to 
make up their minds whether they should 
come in or not, so I brought them with 
me.” 

“ I was afraid you wouldn’t want to see 
us, because you didn’t wait for me to walk 
260 


The Real Queen 


home with you,” Mary Elliott explained, 
crossing the room to Jacquette. 

“ Of course I want to see you,” Jac- 
quette answered, slipping one arm around 
her. “ Don’t I always want to see my 
Maries.? Sit down, girls,” she added, as 
Aunt Sula, motioning them to chairs, took 
one herself. 

But the girls glanced at Mr. Granville 
and his daughter. “ It’s about Sigma 
Pi,” Marie Stanwood hinted mysteriously. 

“ Talk it right out before Grandpa and 
Aunt Sula,” said Mary Elliott, with un- 
usual decision, and she glanced lovingly 
from one to the other of the relatives she 
had adopted in the speech. “ It’s all about 
me, and I want to know what they think.” 

So, while Jacquette stood by her grand- 
father’s chair, with one arm round Mary’s 
waist, Marie Stanwood told them of Mr. 
Elliott’s stern decree, and went on to pre- 
sent the reasons why it was too much to 
expect that Mary should obey him. 

261 


Jacquette, a Sorority Girl 


« WeVe been to Miss Billings — my 
Latin teacher,” she said, “ and she thinks 
no father would ask such a thing of his 
daughter if he knew what it meant. She 
belongs to a college sorority herself, but 
she’s fair to both sides. She says a high 
school sorority probably does sway a girl 
away from study toward — society, and if 
she had a daughter, she’d try to keep her 
out of such things until she went to col- 
lege, but she thinks the getting out, after 
you’re once in, is a different matter. A 
girl that would turn against her sorority 
— this is just what she said — would be 
despised and boycotted by the whole school, 
as much by the non-fratemity and non- 
sorority crowds as by the others. And we 
girls think, Jacquette,” she concluded, 
“ that you can talk the best of any of us, 
and that if you’d just go to Mary’s father 
and tell him how things are at Marston, 
he’d feel differently. What do you say.? ” 
Jacquette’s hand stole down into her 
262 


The Real Queen 


grandfather’s, and she drew Mary closer. 
Then she spoke, with a sweet, womanly ring 
in her voice. 

“ I’m glad you came, girls. I was just 
going to tell my grandfather something 
that I’d like to say before all of you. I’ve 
made up my mind that the Board is right 
— that we’d all be better off without so- 
rorities, and I don’t think I ought to hide 
that belief behind inactive membership an- 
other day. To-morrow I’m going to tell 
the girls, and give up my place in Sigma 
Pi, once for all. Mary, will you be afraid 
to come — with me.?” she asked, smiling 
down into the upturned face which had 
suddenly grown luminous. 

“ Now, Tia, don’t you look sorry this 
time, when you want to be glad ! ” she went 
on, turning to Aunt Sula. “ It isn’t tragic 
the way it was before. Then, I was doing 
it because you thought it was right, but 
now I know it’s right myself, and I’m 
happy about it, too. Why, even if the 
263 


Jacquette, a Sorority Girl 

girls decide that they’ll have to ‘ dishon- 
ourably expel ’ Mary and me, I guess we 
can stand it, as long as we know we’re 
doing right ! ” 

“ Bravo ! ” cried old Mr. Granville, 
bringing his cane down on the floor, while 
Jacquette, with a shining face, caught 
Aunt Sula in her arms for a hug and then 
turned to the bewildered girls, with both 
hands outstretched. 

“ Don’t think I’m breaking the vows 
easily,” she said, reading the doubt in their 
faces. “ I’m not, girls. It’s only because 
a ‘ bad promise is better broken than kept ! ’ 
And, even if you can’t follow your Queen 
in this, I know you’ll never make Mary and 
me feel like outcasts when we see you at 
Marston High.” 

“Outcasts!” ejaculated quiet Mary 
Barnes, opening her lips for the first time 
during the interview, and speaking up 
stoutly. “ Why, Jacquette Willard, you’re 
the splendidest girl I ever saw in my life! 

264 


The Real Queen 

Marie, I don’t know how you feel, but I’m 
going to follow the Queen ! ” 

A little later, as three loyal Maries 
started down the steps together, Mary 
Elliott lingered to throw her arms around 
Jacquette’s neck and whisper happily, 

“ Remember what I wrote you this morn- 
ing : ‘ The night she’ll hae but three ’ ? I 
thought I was going to be the one left out, 
and there it was poor Marion Crandall, 
all the time!” 


265 


CHAPTER XIII 


CHRISTMAS 

I SN’T it pretty, Tia ? ” J acquette de- 
manded with just as fresh and eager 
a note as if she had not asked the 
question a hundred times before. 

“ The prettiest one I ever saw,” Aunt 
Sula agreed, entirely forgetting that she 
had ever answered it until that minute. 

“ Very handsome, very handsome,” Mr. 
Granville pronounced. Then, leaving the 
enthusiastic couple in the doorway, he 
walked toward the glittering Christmas 
tree which loomed at the other end of the 
brightly lighted room. “ What’s this 
queer-shaped bundle down here under the 
branches, girls ? ” he asked, touching it 
with his cane. 

‘‘ Grandpa Granville, you’re as bad as a 


266 


Christmas 


little boy ! ” Jacquette cried out, darting 
forward and drawing him away. “ What 
right have you to pry into that package, 
I’d like to know, sir? ” 

“ Oh, ho ! ” he laughed guiltily, casting 
a furtive backward glance. “We might 
open that one, now, Jacquette, and have it 
over with.” 

“ No, indeed! Not till everyone is here. 
The very idea ! ” she exclaimel. “ You 
must come right in the other room, and 
draw the curtains. That’s the only way 
to keep you out of mischief. Doesn’t Tia 
look beautiful in that creamy gown, 
Grandpa? Isn’t her dark hair lovely with 
it, and don’t you think it’s pretty, waved 
that way? I’m the hair-dresser.” 

Mr. Granville’s eyes rested first on his 
smiling daughter, then on the tall girl at 
her side, whose snowy muslin gown was 
scarcely whiter than the pretty neck and 
arms it bared. Around Jacquette’s throat 
was a necklace of pearls which had be- 
267 


Jacquette, a Sorority Girl 


longed to her mother, and, though she 
wore no other ornament, she seemed aglow 
with colour, for her lips were scarlet, her 
cheeks were roses, her eyes had the sparkle 
of jewels and her beautiful hair glittered 
like gold under sunlight. 

“ I’m very proud of you both,” he said, 
pausing in the doorway to attempt a gal- 
lant bow, but, before it was half done, a 
pair of soft arms caught him round the 
neck. 

“ That’s what you get for standing un- 
der the mistletoe,” Jacquette explained as 
she let him go. “ You’d better be more 
cautious after the girls get here, grand- 
pa! ” 

‘‘ I’d like to know how anyone’s going 
to help getting under it in this house, to- 
night,” he answered, pretending to look 
injured, as he glanced up at the wreaths 
and festoons of green overhead. “ It looks 
innocent enough — all that holly and red 
Christmas bells dangling around — ^but the 
268 


Christmas 


mistletoe’s tucked in everywhere, I suspect. 
It’s a trap. I’m going to warn Bobs about 
it, the minute he gets here.” 

“Warn Bobs, indeed!” Jacquette re- 
peated, laughing back into his face. “ You 
must remember, grandpa, that Bobs is ter- 
ribly grown up, this vacation. And I’m 
a senior, too. You’d better be careful how 
you joke.” Then she added, irrelevantly, 
“ I’ve just had an awful thought. What 
if we’ve invited more people than we’ll have 
room for.^ ” 

“No danger, child. Don’t you worry. 
Your grandmother always said our house 
was elastic when it came to taking in 
friends, and I rather think Sula’s inherited 
the knack of making it stretch.” 

“ It isn’t as if they were going to stay 
all night,” said Aunt Sula, with a smile. 
“ Father, do you remember the winter we 
lived in the little brown house, how Mac 
had to sleep on the hall couch so often that 
he threatened to put up a sign, ‘ Mal- 
269 


Jacquette, a Sorority Girl 

colm’s Guest-room,’ over his bedroom 
door? ” 

‘‘ Do I ? ” Mr. Granville laughed softly. 
‘‘We gave house-parties in those days, 
only we didn’t call them that, did we ? ” 

“ But aren’t times changed? ” Jacquette 
put in, greatly amused. “ Think of Uncle 
Mac now, giving up his splendid room and 
sleeping on a hall couch 1 Or imagine Quls 
doing it. Aunt Fanny would hold up her 
hands in horror at the thought.” 

“ I’ve seen times since we came to Chan- 
nlng when I thought it might do Quis good 
to give up a few things,” said the old gen- 
tleman, thoughtfully, “ but I guess the 
boy’s coming out all right, in spite of the 
money. As for Malcolm, it hasn’t hurt 
him a bit. He’s the same good boy at heart 
that he always was.” 

“ Speaking of angels, there he is, now ! ” 
Jacquette exclaimed. “ No, it isn’t Uncle 
Mac, either,” she added as she flung the 
front door wide open and peered out into 
270 


Christmas 


the snowy night. “ It’s someone in a 
closed carriage. Why, Tia, it’s Mrs. How- 
land! Would she come away and leave 
Margaret.? Probably Margaret made her 
do it, but she told me yesterday that the 
worst thing typhoid fever had done to her, 
next to putting off her graduation, was 
keeping her away from our Christmas 
party. Why, look! Who’s that.? Who 
is it .? ” 

“ It’s a Christmas surprise for you,” 
said Aunt Sula as Mrs. Howland led a 
much-bundled little figure into the hall. 

“ It’s Margaret ! It’s Margaret ! Oh, 
how beautiful!” Jacquette cried, on tip- 
toe with joy as she tried to unwind the 
veils and shawls that Margaret’s anxious 
mother had wrapped her in. “ I never 
dreamed the doctor would let you come out 
at night. I didn’t think you were strong 
enough, yet. 0-o-oh, Margaret ! ” she 
broke off, as she actually found her friend 
at last, inside all the muffling. “ You look 
271 


Jacquette, a Sorority Girl 

like a doll! Your eyes are so big — and 
that short curly hair — ^you darling! Oh, 
why can’t we all look as sweet as that, and 
go to parties in pink wrappers ! ” 

“ There ! Let her go,” Aunt Sula in- 
terposed. They were all laughing, but 
the tears were near the surface, for each 
one was remembering that Margaret had 
been close to the gate of death in the long 
hard weeks just past. “ We’ll put her in 
this easy-chair and have her mother stand 
guard over her. The doctor said we 
might keep her for an hour or two if we’d 
be very careful of her.” 

“ Will he mind my hugging her every 
few minutes.?” Jacquette asked, anx- 
iously. “ I’m so glad — so glad you’re 
here, Margaret ! ” she whispered, making 
sure of one more hug, on the instant. 
“ The evening couldn’t have been perfect 
without you.” 

There was no need for Margaret to an- 
swer in words, even if she could have found 
272 


Christmas 


a chance. Her happiness was shining in her 
face, while her mother and Aunt Sula and 
Jacquette, generaled by old Mr. Gran- 
ville, all bustled about, lining the deep 
chair with pillows, and tucking the little 
convalescent in among them. When she 
was seated, they spread a thick, fleecy 
white shawl over her knees, like a laprobe. 

“ There ! But we won’t cover up her 
pretty pink slippers,” Jacquette declared, 
slipping a hassock under Margaret’s feet. 
“ At least we must let the toes peep out — 
so ! — or I know she won’t have a bit good 
time!” 

“ Jack, you tease ! ” Margaret protested, 
but she gave a contented little ripple of 
laughter as she leaned back among the pil- 
lows. “ Hark I ” she added. “ Isn’t that 
your Uncle Mac’s voice.? ” 

Jacquette flew out into the hall to see, 
and, from that minute the bell kept ring- 
ing, until the rooms were filled with happy, 
laughing, chattering people. The atmos- 
273 


Jacquette, a Sorority Girl 

phere seemed charged with secrets and sur- 
prises that were in danger of going off at 
any instant, and Jacquette’s eyes grew 
bigger and brighter and darker with every 
guest she greeted. 

At last a peculiar series of rings brought 
her dancing downstairs from the room 
where she had just left a bevy of girls, re- 
moving their wraps. 

“ That’s Quis ! I know his ring ! ” she 
cried, as she came. “ I must be there to 
open the door this time, Mollie.” 

But, when she had opened it, she saw, 
instead of Quis, a vision in a long, pale, 
blue party cloak, and, after one astonished 
look at its laughing eyes and rosy red 
cheeks, she opened both arms with a cry of 
delight. 

“Louise Markham! Oh, joy! Uncle 
Mac said your train was ice-bound, and 
you might not get in before morning.” 

“ So it was, but we made up time, and 
wired again later,” Louise explained mer- 
274 


Christmas 


rily, as she emerged from Jacquette’s em- 
brace. “ Your uncle was bound to make 
a Christmas surprise of us, that’s all ! ” 
‘‘Us? We? Of course! Quis was on 
the same train with you. Where’s he? ” 
“Freezing in a dark corner until you 
remember to ask for me,” was the prompt 
response, and a tall figure stepped into the 
light of the doorway. 

“ Oh, Quis — Quis I Goody 1 Ask for 
you ! Didn’t I fly to the ^oor because I 
knew your ring? Never mind that snow 
on your feet. Come in! ” she cried, draw- 
ing them both into the bright warm house. 
“ Uncle Mac, you sinner ! ” she added in 
the next breath, as he came out into the 
hall, his big face beaming. “ You made 
me think they couldn’t get here, but I’ll 
forgive you, now ! Tia, here’s this darling 
Louise, after all, and only look at our 
splendid Quis ! You never can reach up to 
kiss him ! Come Louise — a lot of the girls 
are upstairs ! ” 


275 


Jacquette, a Sorority Girl 

The white dress and blue cloak disap- 
peared up the stairway together, and the 
lively sounds that floated down a minute 
later faintly suggested the reception that 
was going on above. Blanche and Etta 
and Mamie and Flo had all rushed at 
Louise together, while Jacquette hov- 
ered round the edges, too happy for 
words. 

While the exclaiming and the hugging 
were still at their height, something called 
her away, and a little later, she appeared 
on the threshold of the room just long 
enough to say, “ I’ll have to go down, 
girls. Come whenever you’re ready, 
please.” 

‘‘ Sh ! ” Blanche Gross was whispering 
to Louise, as Jacquette turned away. 
“ She’s so excited, she hasn’t noticed, yet. 
Don’t say a word until she does. We 
planned it for a Christmas surprise.” 

At the foot of the stairs Jacquette came 
suddenly on the three Maries, trying to 
276 


At last a peculiar series of rings brought her 
dancing downstairs 





Christmas 


conceal a bulky hatbox, as they caught 
sight of her. 

“ What’s that, girls ? Shan’t I take 
it.?” she inquired, with gleeful innocence. 

“ No, thank you! ” Marie Stanwood an- 
swered, emphatically, thrusting the box 
behind her. “ Where’s your Aunt Sula.? ” 

“Oh! A thousand pardons!” Jac- 
quette apologised, with a mischievous 
laugh. “ Tia, you’re needed here.” 

Then on she went in search of Quis, 
beckoning him, as soon as she caught his 
eye, to follow her into the empty dining- 
room. 

“ Quis,” she began, breathlessly, as soon 
as they were alone together, “ there’s one 
thing I’m nervous about, to-night, because 
I don’t know how you’ll take it. Please 
promise that you’ll be all right before I 
tell you. Please ! ” 

“ How could I help it, fairy princess.? ” 
he answered, smiling, and, as he spoke, his 
thoughts and hers flew back to the night 
277 


Jacquette, a Sorority Girl 

when he had met his Brookdale cousin at 
the train, more than three years before. 
“ I’ll promise anything you say.” 

“ Oh, thank you ! It’s — well, you know 
little Mary Elliott — the girl I like so 
much.^ She and her father moved here last 
fall, and only lately I’ve found out the 
most surprising thing! Clarence Mullen 
is some sort of a cousin of hers.” 

« Well? ” 

“ Well — this,” she hurried on. “ Clar- 
ence’s father and mother are abroad this 
year and he’s spending the holidays with 
Mary and her father, and I just had to 
invite him to-night, and, really, Quis, you 
don’t know how that boy has improved. 
He stands up as straight in his uniform, 
and it’s just as becoming, and he acts so 
gentlemanly! If you only could forgive 
him, and be nice to him ” 

Marquis’s laugh interrupted right there. 
“Forgive!” he echoed. “Do you s’pose 
I’m holding that baby grudge all this 
278 


Christmas 


time? Not much! Besides, I always knew, 
in my heart, that Daddy Branch was right 
in putting the blame for that thing on us 
older fellows. Of course I’ll be nice to 
him! By the way. Jack, has Bobs come? ” 
he broke off, cutting her thanks short with 
the question. 

“ No, not yet.” 

“ Not yet! Won’t he be here this even- 
ing? ” 

“Oh, yes, of course! You meant had 
he come to town? He came yesterday. 
He’s been here nearly all day, helping me 
trim the tree.” 

“Oh, ho! Telephoned you from the 
station, I suppose, as soon as his train 
struck Channing? ” 

“ How did you know ? ” she demanded, 
and then the colour flew to her face, as 
Marquis laughed delightedly. 

“ But you’re on the wrong track, Quis,” 
she added, recovering herself in a flash. 
“ Just wait till you see who’s coming here 
279 


Jacquette, a Sorority Girl 

with him to-night, if you want to know the 
one he really likes.” 

“Pooh! Who is it.?” he asked, his 
laugh subsiding into an incredulous grin. 

“ Oh, the blindness of some people I 
Why, he always admired her at Marston, 
and they’ve been corresponding regularly 
ever since he went to Tech. She thinks 
the world of him; she told me so.” 

Marquis was honestly curious by this 
time. “ Not Bess Bartlett.? ” 

“And why not.? You needn’t speak in 
that disgusted tone. Bess has changed 
since you saw her. That trouble she got 
into just brought her to her senses, Quis. 
You know she was always bright enough, 
only she didn’t care, and when she found 
herself suspended that time, things looked 
serious for the first time in her life. You 
ought to see the good work she’s been do- 
ing this year. We call her ‘ teacher’s pet ’ 
nowadays I ” 

“ Bess Bartlett teacher’s pet ! Say, what 
280 


Christmas 


is this occasion, to-night, Jack? A round- 
up of black sheep? Clarence Mullen and 
Bess Bartlett! And I suppose Bess’s re- 
form has all come since she broke loose 
from the iniquitous sorority ? ” 

“ Don’t tease about that, Quis — ^you 
mustn’t! It was no joke for Bess to take 
off her pin. I s’pose you think ’twas just 
foolish?” There was a pleading note in 
Jacquette’s voice, and Marquis met it 
seriously. 

“ N — no ; perhaps not, J ack. I’ve modi- 
fied my ideas about that. Of course I think 
fraternities are all right, but — well, it may 
turn out that sororities aren’t the best 
thing in the world for girls. There, now, 
calm yourself! Don’t you begin to argue 
that!” 

“ But it’s so unreasonable ! I tell you, 
Quis ” 

“ Tell me not in mournful numbers ! 
I tell you it’s Christmas Eve. Say, what 
do you think of Louise? Stunning?” 

281 


Jacquette, a Sorority Girl 

‘‘ Beautiful as ever. Have you just dis- 
covered her? ” 

He shrugged his shoulders and tried to 
look unconcerned. 

“ I’ve discovered that Bobs Drake has 
less discrimination than I gave him credit 
for. Bess Bartlett ! ” 

The smiles broke out on Jacquette’s face 
again. 

“ Don’t you worry about Bobs ! ” she 
said. “ You’ll see that he’s going to 
bring the belle of the evening here, to- 
night. Come on, Quis, we mustn’t stay out 
here, alone.” 

There was a mystified look on Marquis’s 
face as he followed Jacquette back into the 
jolly crowd, and just at that moment he 
heard the shout, “ Bobs ! Here’s Bobs, at 
last!” 

Everybody tried to get into the hall at 
once, while Bobs lingered at the door to 
brush the snow from the slight figure at 
his side, and Marquis, following the others, 
282 


Christmas 


drew himself to his full height and peered 
over the heads and shoulders, trying to dis- 
cover who it really was that had come with 
Bobs. When at last he did catch a glimpse, 
a pleased smile broke over his face, and, 
seeing a chance at another doorway he 
managed to slip through to where Jac- 
quette was already welcoming her guests. 

“ Mademoiselle ! This is fine ! ” he ex- 
claimed, in honest pleasure. “ I didn’t 
know you were coming! And Bobs, old 
fellow, how are you? Isn’t it great to be 
home?” Then — under his breath to Jac- 
quette, “ I’ll get even with you, young 
lady before the mistletoe’s down! Bess 
Bartlett, indeed ! ” 

“ But look up at them, dearie ! ” Made- 
moiselle was saying to Jacquette, in mimic 
awe. “ Isn’t it wonderful how big and 
beautiful they grow in just a few years 
at college ? ” 

“ Not so beautiful as they grow at 
Marston in the same length of time,” Bobs 
283 


Jacquette, a Sorority Girl 

answered her gallantly, but Mademoiselle, 
following his unconscious glance, gave a 
teasing smile, as she whispered, 

“ Quite right, lambkin. A non-soror- 
ity high-school course is a great beau- 
tifier.” 

“ Oh, Mademoiselle, at your old tricks ! ” 
he laughed back. “ Always knowing more 
than you’ve been told ! ” 

“Now, then! Now, then, Bobs and 
Marquis I ” came Uncle Mac’s big voice 
from the parlour doorway. “No more 
time for falling on each other’s necks. As 
soon as Mademoiselle is ready, you’re to 
follow me into this room. There’s im- 
portant business to transact.” 

Margaret Howland, in the great easy 
chair, had already been moved into the 
room where the Christmas tree was wait- 
ing, and in a few minutes more the rest 
of the party had gathered there. It 
seemed to old Mr. Granville, as he sat in 
his comfortable corner near Margaret and 
284 


Christmas 


watched Jacquette flitting about, seating 
the right ones together and making every- 
one comfortable and happy, that somebody 
else besides her Aunt Sula had inherited 
the knack of making a small place elastic. 
Nor were his the only pair of eyes that fol- 
lowed the gracious little hostess admir- 
ingly, for, while he was thinking it, prac- 
tical Aunt Fanny was whispering to her 
husband’s sister, 

“ Sula, I may as well acknowledge that 
you knew what you were doing. Giving 
up her sorority hasn’t cost her one friend 
worth having, and she certainly is a pic- 
ture of health. Besides, Malcolm heard 
something about her last night ” 

“ Ladies and gentlemen ! Attention, 
please ! ” Uncle Mac’s j oily voice broke in 
just then. The distribution of gifts from 
the great, sparkling, glowing Christmas 
tree had begun, and the first one to be pre- 
sented was a long, narrow package, 
labelled. 


285 


Jacquette, a Sorority Girl 

“ Merry Christmas to the best grand- 
father in the world! Another gold-headed 
cane, to be used when I’m at school. 

“ Jacquette.” 

“ Another ? ” Marquis questioned, as he 
read the tag aloud. “ I didn’t know you 
had the first one. Grandpa.” 

But, though Jacquette’s loving eyes 
found her grandfather’s, and they two un- 
derstood, there was no chance to explain to 
anyone else in the midst of the happy hub- 
bub that was waxing louder with every 
minute. 

Uncle Mac, as master of ceremonies, 
was making a new hit with each new pres- 
entation speech, and he kept Jacquette 
and Marquis so busy delivering presents 
to the others that Quis soon turned and 
asked Clarence Mullen to come and help 
them, winning a quick little glance of 
thankfulness from Jacquette as he did so. 

There were no great sums of money rep- 
286 


Christmas 


resented in the surprises on that tree, but 
there never was more Christmas fun tied 
up in packages. For a steady hour the 
room was ringing with laughter, and, all 
the time, nobody seemed to care in the least 
that scarcely any two in the crowd knew 
what the next two were laughing about. 

At the same time, behind the curtain of 
the noise, there were tender, quiet moments 
when eyes looked into eyes, and two people 
were glad that no one else knew. One of 
these was when Tia opened the locket Jac- 
quette had given her, and saw her girl’s 
face laughing out; another was when Jac- 
quette drew back into the shadow of the 
great tree to look at the little package 
which Uncle Mac had slipped into her 
hand. 

It was labelled, “ Your mother’s own 
girl,” and the tears sprang to her eyes 
when she found a beautiful miniature of 
her own mother at seventeen. 

Uncle Mac heard the little cry she gave, 

287 


Jacquette, a Sorority Girl 

and, looking over her shoulder, whispered, 
‘‘ It was made from a picture I’ve had ever 
since I was a boy. You’re very like her, 
my dear — very like.” 

Jacquette went farther into the shadow, 
after that, and Uncle Mac understood. 
Bobs found her there, presently, wiping 
her eyes, and, for explanation, she laid the 
miniature in his hand. 

“ It’s you,” he said. “ No, not you, 
either.” 

“ My mother, Bobs,” she told him, and 
after that they looked at the picture to- 
gether, without a word. 

Jacquette spoke first. “ I’m going to 
put it away here,” she said, turning to a 
cabinet that stood in the corner. “ I’ll 
show it to Tia after everyone has gone.” 
Then, as she closed the little drawer on the 
precious keepsake, a sense of her duty as 
hostess brought back the smile to her face. 

“ J ust peep through these branches, 
Bobs,” she said. “ See what a pretty pic- 
288 


Christmas 


ture it makes. How Mary Elliott hovers 
over Margaret’s chair ! She’s always try- 
ing to do something for somebody. And 
isn’t Margaret like a wax doll in that pink 
gown.?* Poor girl! Wasn’t it hard she 
had to break down again When she had 
that dreadful illness last winter, and had 
to go away, she set her heart on finishing 
in February this year, and then along 
came typhoid fever, and spoiled that, too.” 

“Was it too much sorority, Jack.?^” 
Bobs asked, confidentially. 

“ I’m afraid so. But I tell Margaret 
there’s one compensation ; she and I can 
be graduated together next June. Oh, 
Bobs, look at Louise and Quis over there 
by the door! They’ve forgotten that 
there’s anyone else on earth. He seems to 
appreciate her more than ever, Bobs.” 

“ That’s right,” Bobs agreed. “ It’s 
been mighty handy for him, having her 
right over at Wells College while he was 
at Cornell. That would go a long way 
289 


Jacquette, a Sorority Girl 

toward keeping a fellow from being home- 
sick.” 

‘‘ Don’t you wish you were at Cornell? ” 
she said. 

Bobs looked down at her for a minute, 
with the old smile. Then he answered 
slowly, shaking his head. ‘‘ Boston and 
the United States mails are good enough 
for me.” 

“Oh, dear! I fished for that and now 
I’ve caught it I don’t know what to do 
with it 1 ” she exclaimed, trying to laugh 
away the queer little flutter that Bobs’s 
words had thrown her into. “ Don’t stay 
behind that tree any longer,” she added 
archly, over her shoulder, “ you’ll be lone- 
some ! ” 

“ Jacquette, you’re wanted here,” called 
Uncle Mac’s voice, as she appeared. “ The 
girls say you’re to present this to Made- 
moiselle.” 

A silence fell in the room, as Jacquette 
took the tiny box from her uncle and bend- 
290 


Christmas 

ing before the French teacher, said, 
simply, 

“To our dear Mademoiselle, with the 
love of her little peacocks, Blanche, Etta, 
Mamie, Flo, Bess, the three Maries, and 
Jacquette.” 

“ My chickens ! My little chickens ! ” 
Mademoiselle murmured, actually with 
tears in her eyes, as Jacquette opened the 
box and taking out an exquisite little neck- 
lace clasped it round Mademoiselle’s 
throat. But, the next minute, before the 
tears were dried, she and everyone else had 
begun to laugh together, for Uncle Mac 
had just announced impressively, “ To 
Robin Sidney Drake, from his friend. Bud 
Banister: A photographic study, entitled 
‘ Bobs’s Rest-cure ’ ” — and the picture 
which was being passed from one to the 
other had proved to be nothing else than 
a small snap-shot of the barred gymnasium 
windows at Marston High. 

Then, suddenly, when it was merriest, 

291 


Jacquette, a Sorority Girl 

the laugh faltered. There stood Clarence 
Mullen, in the middle of the room, awk- 
ward and uncomfortable. Bud had never 
thought of such a thing as his being there, 
w'hen he had planned his little joke. 

For an instant, no one made a sound. 
Then Bobs clapped the younger boy on the 
shoulder, and cried out, ‘‘ Come on, Clar- 
ence — laugh with us ! That’s all past and 
gone. Besides, the rest-cure did me a lot 
of good, I tell you, boy ! ” 

I believe it, Bobs,” Marquis chimed 
in, taking the cue. “We were all half 
crazy that day. A quiet half hour alone 
might have helped some of the rest of us. 
Don’t you say so. Mademoiselle ? ” 

“Not a doubt of it, my lambkin ! ” she 
agreed, so emphatically that the laugh was 
turned on Marquis, much to his own de- 
light. As soon as his voice could be heard, 
he said, 

“ Once, that would have crushed me. 
Mademoiselle. I never thought to live to 
292 


Christmas 


see the day when I shouldn’t be afraid of 
you.” 

“ You haven’t lived to see it yet, sir,” 
Louise Markham told him, saucily. “ Not 
one of us ever will. I’ve been trembling 
all the evening for fear she’d say some- 
thing about my laugh.” 

“Dearie, am I so ferocious.^” Made- 
moiselle reproached her with a soft, upward 
glance. 

“ Oh, I know exactly how you feel, 
Louise!” Jacquette cried, with a roguish 
nod. “ Haven’t you noticed the way I tip- 
toe around ? That’s all owing to something 
Mademoiselle did, the first week I was at 
Marston. I happened to come into the 
study-room and walk across the floor after 
everyone was seated, and she just shook 
her head at me and said, very solemnly, 
as if she were talking to herself, ‘ And she 
so fair — so blonde 1 ’ Then she went to the 
blackboard and wrote, ‘ The light girl with 
the heavy tread — alas ! ’ ” 


Jacquette, a Sorority Girl 

Everybody laughed except Bobs. He 
was glancing down at Jacquette’s white 
slippers and whispering, “ As if Cinder- 
ella ever had a heavy tread ! ” 

“ That venomous little old French 
lady ! ” Mademoiselle murmured, shaking 
her head. 

“ Oh, I deserved it ! ” Jacquette went on 
gaily, answering Bobs, but looking at 
Mademoiselle. “ That was mild, though, 
compared with what you said to Flo the 
time she complained in class that her 
mother made her do too much housework 
and didn’t leave her time to study her 
French. Do you remember, Flo?” 

“ Do I ! ” said Flo expressively. 

“ Tell us, Flo,” Bud Banister put in, 
grinning in advance. 

“ Oh, she just looked me over, calmly, 
and then said in her sweetest tone, ‘ Throw 
her in the lake, honey — throw her in the 
lake! That’s w^hat mothers are for — to 
throw in the lake I ’ ” 




Christmas 


“ Mr. Granville ! Mr. Granville ! ” 
Mademoiselle raised her voice and appealed 
to Uncle Mac out of the gale around her. 
“ Isn’t it time for something else to hap- 
pen?” 

“Yes, Mademoiselle,” he answered from 
the other end of the room, lifting his head 
from a whispered consultation with the 
three Maries. “ Something else is going 
to happen right away. Jacquette, my dear, 
will you stand here? ” he added, stepping 
forward and placing his niece directly in 
front of the tree. 

As she stood there surprised, expectant, 
with the broad green branches spreading 
behind her, Mary Elliott dropped a red silk 
cushion on the floor at her feet, and Jac- 
quette, required to kneel on the cushion, 
saw the other Maries coming toward her, 
bearing a wonderful diadem of gold fila- 
gree, set with sparkling rhinestones, and 
suddenly found herself being crowned 
Queen with all pomp and ceremony. 

295 


Jacquette, a Sorority Girl 

The room was absolutely still until the 
glittering circlet was finally placed on the 
fair bent head. Then came a burst of ap- 
plause. 

“ Long live the Queen ! ” called some- 
body. “ Vive la Reine ! ” cried somebody 
else, and as Jacquette rose to her feet, 
everyone took up the words together. 

For one instant, the startled Queen 
looked at the doorway, but, before she 
could fly. Uncle Mac had stepped forward 
and slipped his arm around her. 

“Friends,” he said, in a voice very dif- 
ferent from the rollicking one he had been 
speaking in all the evening. Then he held 
up his right hand until the cheering had 
been silenced. “ Friends,” he said again, 
“ this act of devotion to our little girl has 
touched me deeply. I’m glad you all know 
that she’s a brave little Queen, but I think 
perhaps you don’t all know what I’m going 
to tell you. I rode out from town last 
night with Mr. Branch, your principal. 

296 


Christmas 


He said to me that there had been a won- 
derful revolution of sentiment at Marston, 
in regard to secret societies, and he says 
he gives the credit for it almost entirely to 
the personal influence of one girl.” 

“ Oh, Uncle Mac — please! ” Jacquette 
implored, but his arm held her close, and 
he went on firmly, 

“ Mr. Branch says that when this girl 
made up her mind it was right for her to 
leave her sorority, she fully expected all 
her friends to turn against her. They 
didn’t. Instead of that, two or three of 
them went out with her on the spot, and, 
somehow, the respect for her motives 
was such that, instead of dishonourably 
expelling her and the others who with- 
drew, as would naturally have been done 
according to the rules of the organisation, 
it was agreed to let them resign quietly. 
That isn’t all. Right here in our own 
little circle I want to tell you the whole 
story. Mr. Branch says this girl has gone 
297 


Jacquette, a Sorority Girl 

on in her high-school work, making a 
splendid record; she has kept all her old 
friends, and made new ones ; and the result 
of her steadfast, womanly course is that, 
yesterday, all the remaining members of 
her old sorority came to Branch in his 
office, and told him that they had decided 
to disband the Marston chapter of Sigma 
Pi Epsilon, on account of the example set 
them by Jacquette Willard.” 

“ Oh ! ” came a little gasping cry from 
Jacquette. Her face, under the glittering 
crown, was white with excitement, as her 
eyes flew from Blanche to Mamie — to Flo 
— to Etta. Not a Sigma Pi pin in sight. 
It was true ! — it was true ! 

‘‘ Long live the Queen of us all ! ” cried 
a happy little treble from the arm-chair, 
and there sat Margaret Howland, too, 
without a sign of a Kappa Delta pin on 
her pink gown ! 

“ Long live ” the rest began — ^but 

Jacquette’s voice checked them. 

298 


Christmas 


“ Please — please listen — all of you ! ” 
she begged, with one white arm out- 
stretched before her uncle as if barring his 
possible objection. “ Let me tell you how 
it was. I haven’t done it. If I’ve ever 
helped anyone at all, it isn’t any credit to 
me — truly it isn’t. It’s — it’s Tia — and it’s 
Mademoiselle — it’s Louise and Bobs, and 
— little Mary ! It’s — oh, it’s all of you ! ” 
Her voice broke suddenly, and without an 
instant’s warning she flew across to her 
little Aunt Sula, caught her in her arms, 
and whirling her to the doorway where the 
mistletoe hung thickest, kissed her again 
and again. The next minute they had 
both disappeared behind the portieres, and 
Jacquette was whispering, 

“ Tia, you’re crying ! That’s why I 
brought you away. I saw you crying ! ” 

“ Yes, I know — but let me ! ” was the 
answer. ‘‘ I love to cry — this way.” 

“Now, this won’t do!” put in a third 
voice, and Bobs’s laughing face appeared 


Jacquette, a Sorority Girl 

between the curtains. “ Oh ! ” he added, 
quickly, drawing back. 

“ It’s all right, Bobs,” whispered the 
tall young Queen, smiling through her 
tears, as she reached over Aunt Sula’s 
shoulder to clasp his hand. Just go back 
and keep them laughing for a minute, can’t 
you.^ We — we’re having the loveliest cry 
you ever heard of ! ” 


Finis. 


100 








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